Espedito Nastro is a Research, Assessment and Monitoring Officer for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and a dual-career PhD fellow at UNU-MERIT and Maastricht University.
He has conducted multisectoral assessments in over 15 countries where the United Nations World Food Programme and its partners operate in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, including emergency contexts (refugee crises, conflicts, natural disasters), utilizing innovative solutions to inform evidence-based decision-making and program design.
Espedito holds a master’s degree in Human Development and Food Security from the University of Rome where he currently lectures a course on Food Security Analysis.
His research interests are broad and aim at contributing to SDGs 1 (No poverty), 2 (Zero hunger) and 10 (Reduced inequalities). They include assessing causal impacts of social protection policies and interventions in developing countries and humanitarian contexts, vulnerability measurement, targeting approaches, innovation in the humanitarian field (e.g., human-centred AI systems). He is very keen to conduct empirical research using econometric analysis and innovative methodologies to inform evidence-based decision-making, concrete policy advice and actionable interventions.