The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development. The UNDP emphasizes on developing local capacity towards long-term self-sufficiency and prosperity.
Alicia Isabel Adriana Bárcena Ibarra is a Mexican biologist and the current Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources of Mexico. She was the Secretary of Foreign Affairs from 2023 to 2024 and previously served as the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) from July 2008 to March 2022.
Heraldo Muñoz Valenzuela is a Chilean political scientist, academic, diplomat and politician; the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile under President Michelle Bachelet; former Assistant Secretary General, Assistant Administrator, and Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Development Programme; and the former Chilean Ambassador to the United Nations, to Brazil, and to the Organization of American States.
Gert Rosenthal Königsberger is a Guatemalan diplomat who served as Guatemala's Minister of Foreign Affairs from 25 July 2006 to 14 January 2008 under the government of Óscar Berger.
María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés is an Ecuadorian linguist, poet, politician, and diplomat. Currently, is Executive Director of GWL Voices, an NGO dedicated to achieve a gender-equal multilateral system. She served as an advisor on biodiversity and indigenous peoples (1999-2005) and was the regional director for South America (2005-2007) at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Espinosa Garcés was Ecuador's Minister of Foreign Affairs twice, from 2007 to 2008 and then from 2017 to 2018. She also served as ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations in New York (2008-2009) and Geneva (2014-2017), and as Ecuador's Minister of National Defense (2012-2014). In June 2018, she was elected President of the United Nations General Assembly for the 73rd session by a two-thirds vote of the member states. Espinosa Garcés became the fourth woman in the seventy-three-year history of the United Nations to be elected President of the General Assembly. Besides her political career, she is also a poet and essayist.
Alan Claude Doss is a British international civil servant who has spent his entire professional life in the service of the United Nations, working on peacekeeping, development and humanitarian assignments in Africa, Asia and Europe as well as at United Nations Headquarters in New York City.
Abdoulie Janneh is a Gambian diplomat and economist. He served as executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa from 2005 to 2012. Since leaving the UN, he has worked as executive director of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. In 2018, he was appointed as chairperson of commissioners of the Gambian Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC).
Gilbert Fossoun Houngbo is a Togolese politician and diplomat who was Prime Minister of Togo from September 2008 to July 2012. He has also held various positions within the United Nations System, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the International Labour Office and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). In 2022 he was elected as the 11th Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO).
Rebeca Grynspan Mayufis is a Costa Rican economist who has been serving as Secretary-General of the UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) since 13 September 2021.
Bruce Frederick Edward Jenks OBE served as director of the Bureau for Resources and Strategic Partnerships of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 1995 to 2009/2010.
Moustapha Soumaré is the United Nations Deputy Special Representative in the Republic of South Sudan. Prior to this appointment of 24 December 2014 by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Mr. Soumaré served as the United Nations Deputy Special Representative in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Jordan Ryan joined The Carter Center as Vice President for Peace Programs in 2015.
José Antonio Ocampo Gaviria is a Colombian writer, economist and academic who was the professor of professional practice in international and public affairs and director of the Economic and Political Development Concentration at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University from July 2007 to August 2022. Prior to his appointment, Ocampo served in a number of positions in the United Nations and the Government of Colombia, most notably in the United Nations as Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs and Executive Secretary for the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and in Colombia as Minister of Finance and Public Credit and Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Abdoulaye Mar Dieye is a Senegalese economist and public servant who has been serving as United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres' Special Coordinator for development in the Sahel since 2021. He previously held various positions within the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Xu Haoliang is a Chinese diplomat serving as the United Nations (UN) Under-Secretary-General since 2023, Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) since 2023, and Director of the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support of UNDP in New York since 2019.
Marta Ruedas is a United Nations civil servant who has worked in many countries around the world, initially with the United Nations Development Programme, including Bolivia, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Georgia, Nepal, Mongolia and Mexico, as well as at its headquarters in New York. The organization assists countries in reaching their targets in economic and social development. In 2015 she was the Country Director of the UNDP in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Susan McDade is a Canadian economist and energy expert. She is currently the Assistant Administrator and Director of the Bureau for Management Services at the United Nations Development Programme.
Sima Sami Bahous is a Jordanian diplomat and women’s rights advocate, and has served as Executive Director of UN Women since 2021. She previously served as Jordan's Ambassador to the United Nations from 2016 to 2021. Earlier, she was Assistant Secretary-General of the Arab League in Cairo, Egypt.
Asako Okai is a Japanese diplomat and UN official currently serving as the ambassador of Japan in Bahrain. She started her career at the UN as assistant administrator at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and director for the UNDP Crisis Bureau, and became United Nations Assistant Secretary-General in 2018. During her time at the USDP, she was in charge of the UNDP’s corporate crisis-related work.
Ivana Živković is a Croatian Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Assistant Administrator and Director, Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) since September 2022. She is also the Director-General for Economic Affairs and Development Cooperation of Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Croatia since 2020.
