Christina Behrendt is Head of the Social Policy Unit in the International Labour Office (ILO)’s Social Protection Department in Geneva (Switzerland). Her work experience includes assignments as regional social security specialist at the ILO Regional Office for Arab States in Beirut (Lebanon), as consultant at the International Social Security Association (ISSA), and as lecturer and research fellow at the University of Konstanz. She has worked and published on various aspects of social security in both developed and developing country contexts. Having studied in Konstanz and Edinburgh, she earned her Master degree in Politics and Public Administration and her PhD in Social Policy from the University of Konstanz (Germany).
She has widely published on social protection in both developed and developing countries, including on social assistance and other cash transfers, the extension of social protection to those in the informal economy, income distribution and poverty alleviation, as well as the distributive effects of various social protection benefits on poverty and inequality. She has also contributed to the ILO’s World Social Protection Report 2017-19, and several other ILO publications. Her current work focuses mainly on the extension of social protection in low and middle income countries.