Head of Strategic Affairs - Europe
Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (ApexBrasil)
Aloysio Nunes Ferreira Filho was born in São José do Rio Preto on 5 April 1945. He is a lawyer and was a prosecutor for the State of São Paulo. He has served several legislative terms at the state level and in the national congress. He was vice-governor of São Paulo, secretary of state of São Paulo and of the city hall of the capital. He was secretary general of the presidency of the republic, minister of justice and minister of foreign affairs. He currently heads the strategic affairs division of the office of ApexBrazil in Brussels, Belgium.
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Harsen Nyambe
Director for Sustainable Environment and Blue Economy
African Union Commission (AUC)
Prior to his current position, Harsen Nyambe served as head of division responsible for environment, climate change, water, biodiversity, disaster risk reduction, forestry, land management, meteorology and wildlife. He has 25 years’ professional experience of which 18 years has been in international organisations. Before joining the AUC, he served the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as a senior programme manager responsible for natural resources and the Commonwealth Secretariat as head of climate change. Nyambe has also worked for the government of the Republic of Namibia as a deputy director in the ministry of environment and tourism and in the ministry of agriculture, water and forestry. Furthermore, he was also head of the National Remote Sensing Centre of Namibia and prior to that a lecturer for environmental impact assessment and ecology at the University of Namibia. His passion lies in fostering sustainable natural resources management and building resilience to environmental shocks.
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Beatrice Cyiza
Director General of Environment and Climate Change
Ministry of Environment, Rwanda
Beatrice Cyiza is a committed environmental expert with over 15 years’ experience in environment management. She coordinates the ministry’s policy development and stakeholder engagement and steers the development of strategies and plans while ensuring the mainstreaming and compliance with key policy actions. In her role, she promotes research and studies that are instrumental in advancing policy implementation and facilitating the sharing of best practices. As an administrative coordinator for academic affairs, extension and applied research at the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture from 2018 to 2021, she contributed to the development of institutional policies, action plans and faculty development strategies. As an environmental audit and monitoring officer and the Nagoya protocol focal point at the Rwanda Environment Management Authority, she developed a number of audit check lists for key sectors and developed environmental audit reporting tools. Beatrice has dual master's degrees in biodiversity conservation and in disaster risk management and climate change governance.
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Françoise Bonnet
Secretary General
Association of Cities and Regions for Sustainable Resource Management (ACR+)
Françoise Bonnet joined ACR+ in 2013. She holds a degree in law from Liège University, complemented by a diploma in European law from the College of Europe and in specialised studies in environmental law from Brussels University. She has more than 25 years’ experience in legislative issues and in material resource management and policy, regularly offering policy advice, technical assistance and capacity development. During her professional life, she has worked for public authorities such as Brussels Region Administration, the UN and the European Commission, as well as for private companies. Thanks to this, she is familiar with local administration systems and North-South cooperation with the countries in the Mediterranean region.
To support Pawanka Fund’s mission, Edna Kaptoyo applies over 15 years’ experience in non-profit organisations working in social development and Indigenous peoples rights practice and policy advocacy. She is experienced in local, regional and global external engagement in the development sector, with specific focus on climate change and environment programming and policy, Agenda 2030, Indigenous peoples’ rights, and project implementation. Edna currently serves as the global grant making and partnerships officer at Pawanka Fund, a global Indigenous led fund. She is also the main representative for Africa Indigenous peoples in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP) facilitative working group, which is an inclusive space that brings together people and their knowledge systems to build a climate resilient world.
Thomas Van Oppens is Leuven's deputy mayor for waste management or, as he prefers to call it, material management. Leuven is one of the 100 European cities on a mission to become climate neutral. But what about all the materials that are needed to accomplish that? And what about the materials that are already in the city? How can we connect the dots? Thomas takes you from the high-level plans and translates them into local policies and realisations.
Daniel is the coordinator of the WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities at WRI Colombia. In this role, he coordinates a broad set of initiatives to promote sustainable and enjoyable cities on subjects like descarbonisation of transport, active mobility, urban development, urban economics and air quality. Daniel is also part of the Living Lab, the nudge unit of WRI that tests and implements initiatives based on behavioural insights to foster WRI’s environmental agenda. As part of the Living Lab, he has participated in research projects on transport, energy and food. Currently he is supporting the water consumption program in Monterrey, Mexico. Daniel holds a master’s in urban development and is one of the alumni of WRI´s Behavioral Sciences Academy.
Loredana Capone was born on 14 February 1964, in Lecce, where she still lives. She has a law degree and has worked in administrative law, education and regional government. In 2020, she was re-elected as regional councillor of Puglia, where she has led tourism, culture, energy, industry, innovation and material management endeavours. Previously she was on the management board of Nereus, the network of European regions that use space technologies. In the province of Lecce, Capone has been responsible for economic planning, technological innovation, institutional communication, general affairs, educational policies, social security and equal opportunities.
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Achim Steiner
Administrator
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Achim Steiner became UNDP Administrator in June 2017 and has been reappointed by the United Nations General Assembly to a second four-year term beginning in June 2021. He is also the vice-chair of the UN Sustainable Development Group, which unites 40 entities of the UN system. He has been a global leader on sustainable development, climate resilience and international cooperation. He has worked to champion sustainability, economic growth and equality for the vulnerable, and has been a vocal advocate for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Prior to UNDP he was the director of the Oxford Martin School and previously led the UN Environment Programme. He was also director general of International Union for the Conservation of Nature and the secretary general of the World Commission on Dams.
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Aik Hoe Lim
Director, Trade and Environment Division
The World Trade Organization (WTO)
Aik Hoe Lim oversees the WTO’s work on trade and environment, as well as on the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. He joined the WTO in 1999 and served in the external relations division, the director-general's office and the trade in services division. He was previously counsellor to two WTO director-generals, adviser to the Director General’s Consultative Group, and secretary to WTO committees, working groups and negotiating bodies on services trade and domestic regulation. His principal areas of interest and expertise are on trade and sustainable development, climate change, technical barriers to trade, services trade policy, and trade and regulation.