Joel R. Charny

Joel Charny is vice president for policy of Refugees International and is responsible for overseeing the policy and advocacy program of the organization. He is an expert on post-conflict transitions and has been RI’s leading analyst on the humanitarian impact of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Charny joined Refugees International in July 2000 after working for four years in Cambodia as deputy program manager with the Cambodia Area Rehabilitation and Regeneration Project of the United Nations Development Program. Prior to working for the UNDP in Cambodia, Charny spent 16 years with Oxfam America, a relief and development organization based in Boston. He first worked inside Cambodia during the 1980 famine emergency and then went on to manage the agency’s work in Asia.

Charny is the author of Obstacles to Recovery in Vietnam and Kampuchea: U.S. Embargo of Humanitarian Aid. He has also written numerous articles on humanitarian issues, which have appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Economist, Asiaweek, The Asian Wall Street Journal, and The Christian Science Monitor.

Charny has a master’s degree in international education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.