As Secretary General of the largest international humanitarian organisation in Norway, Elisabeth Rasmusson is responsible for the organisation’s activities in around 20 countries and more than 2600 staff who work to protect and assist displaced people in some of the most difficult conflicts in the world.

Elisabeth joined NRC in 1993 as program coordinator for Latin-America. Since then she has been engaged in humanitarian work in a number of places in the world; As Field Coordinator for the UN in Angola; Cooperation Coordinator for the International Red Cross Committee in Colombia; Deputy Head of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation Europe (OSCE) Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina, NRC Country Director in Georgia, Resident Representative for NRC in Geneva and UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Uganda.

As Senior Advisor to the Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator in Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Elisabeth helped strengthen and develop roles and functions of UN Humanitarian Coordinators. She also headed the establishment of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) in Geneva – the leading international body monitoring conflict-induced internal displacement worldwide.

She is a board member of the Norwegian Peacebuilding Center (NOREF), member of Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) Advisory Group and member of the Board of Trustees of the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights.