Geography, Archaeology & Irish Studies

Una Murray has over twenty-eight years of international experience working on development issues with a strong track record of publishing. Una set up and is the Director of the MA in International Development Practice at the University of Galway, which includes a wider diversity of international students who come to Galway for this one year MA. Una also runs an IRC funded project on migration, climate change and social protection (MiCASP), which has a contemporary and international focus, in line with the UNFCCC. Una works more broadly as an Evaluator and Consultant across a wide range of United Nations organisations, focusing on topics such as migration, labour and gender, and worked for many years on the theme child labour in agriculture. For example Una evaluated the institutional response of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to climate change, and is a senior evaluator for UN IFAD's thematic evaluation on gender.

She previously worked as a Lecturer in University College Cork (UCC) in international development and lectured on a number of University of Galway Masters programs – e.g. the Masters in Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security; the MA in Gender, Rights and Globalisation; and the Masters in Environment and Society. Una has also taught on a MA in Rural Development at two universities in Ethiopia, and has a range of international development publications.  

In 2019, Una worked with UNDP on their Climate Change National Determined Contribution (NDC) Support Programme, and facilitated a key Global Gender Workshop on the NDC Process, whilst also working on the strategy for the gender component of the NDC programme.  Una recently led a team conducting a formative evaluation of UNICEF’s response to migrant children in the Horn of Africa, including how their humanitarian and development responses can overlap.   

When working with FAO in the 1990s, she has worked on socio-economic and gender issues in Asia and Africa and since then she has had a focus on social inclusion, social protection, migration, labour issues, institutions, and capacity development, particularly in the agriculture sector. She has worked for bilateral agencies, including on social protection for Irish Aid’s policy unit, developed an topic guide on rural women’s empowerment for DFID, and a gender baseline evaluation for Finland’s aid program. Una has also worked a number of projects in Laos, Thailand, Malawi and the Philippines. She has led evaluations for many other agencies (ILO, FAO, UNECE).