Kirsten Schuettler is Africa Chief Economist at GIZ and a dual-career PhD fellow at UNU-MERIT and Maastricht University.
She has over 20 years of experience in international development across four continents. Her work focuses on migration, forced displacement, labor markets, entrepreneurship, innovation and economic development, spanning research, policy advisory, and program leadership. She has held senior roles at both GIZ and the World Bank. She is a co-author of the World Bank's 2023 World Development Report: Migrants, Refugees, and Societies and the 2024 book The Labor Market Impact of Forced Displacement. Fluent in four languages, she holds master's degrees in economics and political science.