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.

Director General of Central Statistics Office of Ireland

Pádraig Dalton was appointed to the role of Director General of the Central Statistics Office in May 2012. Pádraig is a career statistician having joined the CSO in November 1991. He has worked in Structural Business Statistics, Statistical Methodology, Balance of Payments and in the Labour Market and Social Inclusion Division. Between 2007 and 2010 Pádraig was Director of Statistical Support & Innovation and Assistant Director General, Social & Demographic Statistics from September 2010 to May 2012.
Pádraig is a member of the European Statistical System Committee (ESSC) which provides professional guidance to the European Statistical System (ESS) for developing, producing and disseminating European Statistics. Padraig is an ex-officio member of the National Statistics Board (NSB). Pádraig was the Chair of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) High Level Group for the Modernisation of Statistical Production and Services (2012 -2017). Pádraig is a graduate of University College Dublin where he completed his primary degree, a B.A. in Pure Economics in 1989 and he was awarded a Masters in Economics in 1990.

Chair of the UN Statistical Commission, Chief Statistician of Kenya National Bureau of Statistics

Mr. Zachary Mwangi Chege has over 27 years of experience in the public service. He holds a Bachelor of Arts (First class Honors) from University of Nairobi and a Masters of Arts in Economic Policy Management, Makerere University, Uganda. He has expertise in official statistics, strategic management, surveys and censuses implementation, public policy analysis, budgeting, and project management, among others.
Prior to his current appointment as the Director General of the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), he was the Director of Macroeconomic Statistics, KNBS, from 2008 to 2012. From 1991 to 2008 he worked in the mainstream civil service rising to the position of Chief Economist in the Ministry of Planning and National Development.

He has coordinated the preparation of various publications including, Annual Economic Survey reports, Annual Statistical Abstract reports, Quarterly GDP reports, Socio Economic Atlas, various survey reports, Public Expenditure Review reports, Quarterly Budget Review reports and District Development Plans.

He has attended various courses and workshops, both locally and abroad, on Regional Integration, Statistical Developments, Public Expenditure Management, Financial Programming and Policies, Risk Management, Quality Management System, Project Management, Macroeconomic analysis and modeling, among others.

Assistant-Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director, UN Women

Ms. Åsa Regnér serves as Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director for the Intergovernmental Support and Strategic Partnerships Bureau, at UN Women since May 2018. Ms. Regnér served since 2014 as Minister for Children, the Elderly and Gender Equality of Sweden, where her focus was on concrete results in the implementation of Swedish gender equality policies as well as a shift towards prevention of violence against women and the involvement of men and boys in gender equality work.
She has extensive experience in the area of gender equality and women’s empowerment, having held various leadership positions in government, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and the United Nations. She has led important processes and campaigns as a leading advocate for feminism and gender equality in Sweden and beyond. She has built and managed strong partnerships with a range of key stakeholders, including women’s movements and civil society, both at the global and in country contexts. She previously served as UN Women Country Director in Bolivia (2013-2014) and Secretary-General of Riksförbundet för sexuell upplysning, Swedish International Planned Parenthood Federation branch. She also served as Director of Planning, Ministry of Justice (2004-2006) and as Political Adviser in the Prime Minister’s Office (1999-2004). She began her career in women’s rights as a volunteer for a Swedish NGO in La Paz, Bolivia (1990-1991) and moved to the Ministry of Labour working on Gender and labour market issues for several years in the 1990s. Ms. Regnér holds a Master’s Degree in Democratic Development from Uppsala University. Born in 1964, she has two children.

Executive Director of Data2X

Emily Courey Pryor is Executive Director of Data2X. Hosted at the UN Foundation, Data2X promotes more and better gender data and its use to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment. Alongside launching Data2X in 2013, Emily built and managed the UN Foundation’s research program on Women’s Economic Empowerment, and served as Senior Advisor to Girl Up, a ‘for girls, by girls’ campaign. Emily has also worked in the private sector, for biotech firm Gilead Sciences, and for the American Red Cross Headquarters. She received her MPH from the University of Michigan and BA from the University of Florida.

Acting Director-General of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Ghana

Is the Acting Director-General of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), and chair of the SDGs Implementation Coordination Committee. She is also the Chairman of the Governing Board of the Ghana Statistical Service. She has provided technical support in diverse capacities, to national, Africa-wide and other international initiatives including, the Africa Symposium for Statistical Development (ASSD) and the Africa Programme for Accelerated Improvement in Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (APAI-CRVS). She has had extensive experience in: preparing methodological publications and capacity-building in the collection, compilation and use of social and demographic statistics, and planning and coordinating of international statistical initiatives. She graduated from the University of Ghana, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Statistics, in 1977, holds a Ph.D. degree in Demography (1988), from the University of Pennsylvania.

Deputy Director General, Statistical Institute of Jamaica

Miss Leesha Delatie-Budair is the Deputy Director General of the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) with responsibility for the technical divisions of the Institute. Prior to assuming the role of Deputy DG, Ms Delatie-Budair served as Director, Research Design and Evaluation (RD&E) were she led the team responsible for maintaining the statistical infrastructure of Jamaica’s National Statistics Office. She also serves as the National Focal Point on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Indicators and is a former member of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on the SDGs (IAEG-SDGs). Ms. Delatie-Budair is currently a member of the UN Committee of Experts on Business Statistics, and has worked as a statistician for over twelve (12) years. She holds a M. Sc. in Economic Development Policy from the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute for Social & Economic Studies (SALISES), at University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona and a B. Sc. in Social Sciences, double majoring in Economics and Statistics from the UWI, Mona. She is also a graduate of the Sampling Programme for Survey Statisticians at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and a member of the International Association of Survey Statistician (IASS).

Chief Statistician of the United States of America

Dr. Nancy Potok is Chief Statistician of the United States at OMB. She previously served as Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Census Bureau. Dr. Potok has over 30 years of leadership experience in the public, non-profit, and private sectors. She served as Deputy Under Secretary for Economic Affairs at the US Department of Commerce; Principal Associate Director and CFO at the Census Bureau; Senior Vice President for Economic, Labor, and Population Studies at NORC at the University of Chicago; and Chief Operating Officer at McManis & Monsalve Associates, a business analytics consulting firm. She is an adjunct professor at the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at The George Washington University. She is the recipient of the Presidential Rank Award, the Secretary of Commerce Gold Medal and Silver Medals for outstanding achievements, the Arthur S. Flemming Award, the Enterprise Risk Manager of the Year Award given by the Association for Federal Enterprise Risk Management, and the Distinguished Alumni Award from The George Washington University. Dr. Potok is a member of the American Statistical Association, an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) and serves on the Board of Trustees for the Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics at UCLA. She received her Ph.D. in public policy and public administration at The George Washington University.

Managing Director and Co-founder, Open Data Watch

Shaida Badiee is managing director of Open Data Watch, an NGO focused on monitoring and promoting open data in national statistical offices. She has been an active member of the UN Secretary General’s advisory group on data revolution, co-chairs the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Data Network, and has played a key role with the startup of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. As senior advisor, Shaida works closely with the Data2X team focused on knowledge creation and advocacy for closing gender data gaps. She brings 36 years of experience in managing global development statistics at the World Bank and the long-time Director of the Development Data Group. During her tenure, flagship global statistical products were launched such as the World Development Indicators, Global Development Finance, and the Atlas of Global Development. In 2010, she led the World Bank’s Open Data Initiative, a ground-breaking program to provide full and free access to the World Bank’s extensive statistical databases. Prior to that, she played a key role in the creation and operation of PARIS21 as well as leading international efforts to coordinate technical and financial support for statistics through initiatives like the Marrakech Action Plan.

Secretary General, FIAN International (NGO Major Group)

Ms. Sofía Monsalve Suárez is the Secretary General of FIAN International, which is an international human rights organization working for the right to food and nutrition. Before turning Secretary General in 2016, she coordinated FIAN’s program on land and natural resources for more than 15 years. This work included field research visits and fact-finding missions to twenty countries; close collaboration with peasants, family farmers, landless people, fisher folks, indigenous peoples, rural workers organized in the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC); conceptual work and research on the intersection between human rights, land and natural resource governance in collaboration with various academic institutions; and extensive advocacy work in the UN human rights system, inter alia, preparing and presenting FIAN’s reports to the UN treaty bodies and the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council; and contributing to the development of human rights standard setting. Likewise, she has extensive experience collaborating with the UN agencies working on food and agriculture, inter alia, coordinating the civil society participation to various process of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS).