President of Economic and Social Council

H.E. Ms. Marie Chatardová is the Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the United Nations, Co-Chair of the 2019 Multi-stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) for the Sustainable Development Goals.

As moderator of the 2019 HLPF in the session of “Report of the STI Forum”, until her appointment in 2016, Ms. Chatardová was her country’s Ambassador to France and Monaco, and its Permanent Representative to the International Organization of la Francophonie. Between 2013 and 2016, she also served as Permanent Representative to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). A career diplomat, Ms. Chatardová held several positions within the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. She was Director of Diplomatic Protocol from 2007 to 2010, and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Sweden from 2002 to 2007. Prior to that, she was Director of the Communications Strategies Department, from 2000 to 2002, and Unit Chief of the Department for the Coordination of Relations with the European Union, between 1999 and 2000. She also served in the Permanent Mission of Czech Republic to the European Union, between 1995 and 1999, and in the Ministry’s Department of Analysis and Policy Planning, from 1994 to 1995. Ms. Chatardová was awarded Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honor of France in 2016, and Officer of the Order of Saint-Charles of Monaco in 2016. Ms. Chatardová holds a Doctor of Law from Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic.

Co-founder of online magazine Worldchanging.com

Alex Steffen is an American futurist who writes and speaks about sustainability and the future of the planet. He emphasizes the importance of imagining persuasive, positive possible futures: “It’s literally true that we can’t build what we can’t imagine,... The fact that we haven’t compellingly imagined a thriving, dynamic, sustainable world is a major reason we don’t already live in one.”

Economist, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development, senior UN advisor, bestselling author, and syndicated columnist whose monthly newspaper columns appear in more than 100 countries. He is the co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, the leading global prize for environmental leadership. He has twice been named among Time magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders. He was called by the New York Times, “probably the most important economist in the world,” and by Time magazine “the world’s best known economist.” A recent survey by The Economist ranked Professor Sachs as among the world’s three most influential living economists of the past decade.
Professor Sachs serves as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He is University Professor at Columbia University, the university’s highest academic rank. During 2002 to 2016 he served as the Director of the Earth Institute. Sachs is Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on the Sustainable Development Goals, and previously advised UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on both the Sustainable Development Goals and Millennium Development Goals and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria.
Sachs is currently Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network under the auspices of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, and a Commissioner of the ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission for Development. He is Chair and Founder of SDG USA, a non-governmental initiative to promote the Sustainable Development Goal concepts in the United States. Sachs is also co-founder and Chief Strategist of Millennium Promise Alliance, and was director of the Millennium Villages Project (2005-2015).
Prior to joining Columbia, Sachs spent over twenty years as a professor at Harvard University, most recently as the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Sachs received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Mr. Liu Zhenmin of China as the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs effective 26 July 2017. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Liu was Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs of China since 2013. Among his various diplomatic assignments, he served as Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva and Other International Organizations in Switzerland (2011-2013).

Mr. Liu brings to the position more than 30 years of experience in the diplomatic service, with a strong focus on the promotion of bilateral, regional and global issues. He was deeply involved for 10 years in climate change negotiations including the conclusion of the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. He also widely participated in the international activities on the protection of our planet including Antarctica and the oceans. Over the last several years, in various capacities, he has been consistently highlighting and advocating for sustainable development issues.

Mr. Liu started his career at the Foreign Affairs Ministry in 1982. Since then, he has served the Ministry in various capacities, including as Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs (2009-2011); Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations (2006-2009); Director-General, Department of Treaty and Law (2003-2006); and Deputy Director-General, Department of Treaty and Law (1998-2003). He also served in the Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva and Other International Organizations in Switzerland (1992-1995) and in the Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations (1984-1988).

As Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Mr. Liu guides UN Secretariat support for the follow-up processes of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. He also oversees the substantive services to many intergovernmental processes, including the annual meetings of the Second and Third Committees of the General Assembly, the meetings of the Economic and Social Council, including its Development Cooperation Forum, and the work of the subsidiary bodies of ECOSOC.

In addition to intergovernmental processes, Mr. Liu oversees DESA’s policy analysis and capacity development work. He also serves as the Convenor of the Executive Committee on Economic and Social Affairs, and advises the United Nations Secretary-General on all development-related issues, including climate change, internet governance, and financing for development.

Mr. Liu holds a Master of Laws from the Law School of Peking University. He was born in August 1955 in Shanxi Province, China. Mr. Liu is married.

Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Disability and Accessibility

There are more than 1 billion people with some form of disability, accounting for 15 per cent of the world population. In spite of remarkable advances towards accessible and disability-inclusive societies, an enormous gap remains between commitments made and the daily experiences of persons with disabilities. A concerted effort must therefore be made to ensure that people with disabilities are not left behind as promised in the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals. Appointed as the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Disability and Accessibility since June, Ms. María Soledad Cisternas Reyes has been promoting the rights of persons with disabilities at regional and global levels.

Prior to the current appointment, Ms. Cisternas was the Chairperson of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities of the United Nations and recipient of the National Prize of Human Rights (2014-2015). She has been working closely with the United Nations on disability issues for the past two decades, including serving as an expert before the ad hoc committee that developed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, for which she is also the rapporteur for individual complaints.
As a human rights lawyer by training, she also serves as the director of the Legal Programme on Disability in the faculty of law of Diego Portales University, and contributes to the promotion of the rights of persons with disabilities at national, regional and international levels.

Ms. Cisternas trained municipal judges, civil servants and members of civil society in various regions of Chile in different aspects of the rights of persons with disabilities, drawing on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; co-produced the documentary “Six Women in America” dealing with the process of the implementation of the Convention from a gender perspective; and advised the Human Rights Secretariat of the Latin American Union of Blind Persons (ULAC) and members of the Advisory Group of the Ibero-American Network of Non-Governmental Organizations of Persons with Disabilities and their Families (RIADIS).

She graduated from the Universidad Catolica de Chile with a law degree, and was awarded the title of Supreme Court attorney. Ms. Cisternas has also completed her Master’s studies in political science at the same university with a focus on political institutions and processes.