[3] Grandi started his career in the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1988, and has served in a variety of countries, including Sudan, Syria, Turkey, and Iraq after the first Gulf War.

He also headed a number of emergency operations including in Kenya, Benin, Ghana, Liberia, the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa, Yemen and Afghanistan.

[citation needed] Grandi then moved to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) in 2004, where he served as Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General responsible for political affairs from 2004 to 2005.

[citation needed] On 11 November 2015 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced his intention to appoint Grandi as the next United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to take office in 2016.

[5] Since 2019, Grandi has been a member of the World Economic Forum High-Level Group on Humanitarian Investing, co-chaired by Børge Brende, Kristalina Georgieva and Peter Maurer.