Rebeca Grynspan of Costa Rica was appointed the eighth Secretary-General
of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on
13 September 2021.
She is the first woman in the organization’s history to hold this position.
A renowned advocate of human development, Ms. Grynspan has a substantive
track record in government, in the United Nations system and as an economist.
She has been repeatedly called on to help focus the world’s attention on
key issues such as the reduction of inequality and poverty, gender equality
and South–South cooperation as a means of achieving the Sustainable
Development Goals.
She was elected Vice-President of Costa Rica and held office from 1994 to
1998, also serving as Minister of Housing, Minister Coordinator of Economic
and Social Affairs and Deputy Finance Minister.
Prior to her appointment at UNCTAD, she was Secretary-General of the
Ibero-American Conference from 2014 to 2021, chairing intergovernmental
processes through regular summits of Heads of State and Government of the
organization’s 22 countries.
At the United Nations Development Programme, from 2010 to 2014, she was
Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Associate Administrator,
following on her previous role as Assistant Secretary-General and Regional
Director for Latin America and the Caribbean from 2006 to 2010. Between
2001 and 2006, she served as Director of the Subregional Headquarters in
Mexico of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean.
Ms. Grynspan has contributed to key global and United Nations initiatives.
In 2021, she was appointed a member of the High-level Independent Panel on
Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response of
the Group of 20 and named Special International Adviser to the newly created
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT
REBECA GRYNSPAN
Secretary-General
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
Economic and Social Council of Argentina by the President of Argentina.
She has been a member of the International Labour Organization’s Global
Commission on the Future of Work, a member of the Interim Haiti Recovery
Commission, comprising prominent international partners and co-chaired
by the Government of Haiti and United Nations Special Envoy and former
President of the United States of America Bill Clinton, and a member of the
Steering Committee of the Scaling Up Nutrition movement under the United
Nations Children’s Fund. She was a member of the United Nations Highlevel
Panel on Financing for Development and served on the United Nations
Millennium Project’s task force on poverty and economic development.
Ms. Grynspan is a former member of the Governing Council of the Society for
International Development, a global network of individuals and professionals
at the forefront of development, and of the Advisory Board of the Expansión
International Economic Forum 2021. From 2014 to 2020, she chaired the
Board of Trustees of the International Institute for Environment and
Development, a key global organization at the forefront of development and
environmental policy research.
She is a former trustee of the Complutense Institute for International Studies of
the Complutense University of Madrid. In 2014 and 2015, she was identified
as one of the 50 leading intellectuals of Latin America.
She was recognized as one of the 100 most powerful women in Central
America by Forbes magazine in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. She received
the Forbes Award for Excellence (2017), the Gumersindo de Azcárate Award
(2020) and the Woman of the Year Award from the Women in a Legal World
initiative (2020).
In 2019, the Government of Spain conferred on her the highest civilian
honour, the Grand Cross of the Order of Alfonso X the Wise and, in 2021, the
President of Portugal awarded her the Grand Cross of the Order of the Infante
Don Henrique. In 2020, she received the Aquí Europa–Vocento Award as a
Latin American personality for her outstanding contribution to strengthening
Europe–Latin America relations.
Ms. Grynspan holds a degree in economics from the University of Costa Rica
and a master’s degree in economics from the University of Sussex. She was
awarded a Doctorate honoris causa each from the University of Salamanca, the
University of Extremadura and the European University of Madrid in recognition
of her outstanding professional achievements.
