Ms. Cecilia UGAZ ESTRADA (Peru) is Director of the Gender Equality & Empowerment of Women Unit, CMO/GEW and the Director General’s Special Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean.

UNIDO’s mandate to promote inclusive and sustainable industrial development relies on the advancement of gender equality and the empowerment of women. The Unit for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women (GEEW) serves as the institutional coordination point for the implementation of UNIDO’s Policy and Strategy for GEEW. 

Prior to this assignment, she was Director of the Policy Research and Statistics Department.

Prior to joining UNIDO, she served as the United Nations Resident Coordinator as well as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative for Paraguay. She also served as the Deputy Resident Representative for UNDP in Argentina and as Deputy Director for the Human Development Report Office of UNDP in New York. Ms. Ugaz Estrada has also held various positions in academia in Switzerland, United Kingdom and Finland as well as with the World Bank in Washington DC.

Ms. Ugaz Estrada holds a PhD in economics from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris.