International Indian Treaty Council, UN MGoS

Consultant for Energy Policy Analysis, Sustainable Energy Team, Division for Sustainable Development Goals (DSDG)

WRI Director of International Climate Action

David Waskow is the Director of WRI’s International Climate Initiative. The Initiative is focused on international cooperation that catalyzes and supports action on climate change at the national level in developed and developing countries. The initiative includes work on the elements of a 2015 international climate agreement and the Climate Justice Dialogue, addressing issues of climate impacts and equity.

David has worked for many years at the intersection of environmental and development issues. Prior to WRI, David directed climate change policy at the development organization Oxfam America, where much of his work focused on the impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities. While at Oxfam, he addressed a wide range of climate finance issues, including increasing financial resources, the development of effective, responsive finance institutions, and the participation of local communities in directing the use of finance on the ground. At Oxfam, he also directed policy work on climate adaptation and resilience strategies, including food security and agriculture issues and the role of the private sector in climate resilience.

Prior to joining Oxfam, Waskow served as the international program director for Friends of the Earth, where his role included overseeing the organization's work on the environmental dimensions of trade policy and international financial institutions. In addition to his international experience, he has worked on domestic issues ranging from low-income housing to garment industry labor conditions.

He has testified before Congress on responses to climate change and on trade issues, and he is frequently a go-to source on climate change financing for the media, from The Washington Post to The New York Times.

He has graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University; his undergraduate degree is from Brown University.

Asian Development Bank, Senior Economic Advisor

I am Advisor to the Chief Economist, in the Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Manila, Philippines, where I have worked since 1996. My main functions are to advise ADB’s Chief Economist on development issues at large and, specifically, on their implications for both ADB’s operations and for policy dialogue with the Bank’s developing member countries; and to lead the work program on “Asia’s Economic Transformation”. I have travelled extensively throughout Asia and participated in many policy discussions with Governments and provided advice on the design of development plans.

Coordinator, Green Jobs Programme, Enterprises Department, International Labour Organization

UNDP Director of Global Environmental Finance

Dr. Pradeep Kurukulasuriya is the global lead of UNDP’s assistance to developing countries to access finance from vertical funds for actions on adaptation to climate change impacts and risks. He and his team oversee a portfolio valued at more than $1.4 billion of grant financing, active in more than 95 countries. Recently, Dr. Kurukulasuriya spearheaded UNDP’s assistance to countries to engage with the Green Climate Fund, securing more than $0.5 billion of grant financing for climate action on reducing impacts of droughts, floods, sea-level rise and extreme events on key economic sectors such as agriculture, water resources and infrastructure

Agriculture, Adaptation, SDGs and Interagency Relations, UNFCCC

Pathfinders for Justice, NYU Center on International Cooperation

Maaike de Langen is currently Head of Research for the Task Force on Justice, which is part of the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies project at New York University's Center on International Cooperation. She has over fifteen years of experience leading national and international programs and teams in the areas of Governance, Rule of Law and Legal Empowerment. She has worked in the Netherlands, Mali, Chad and New York.

Maaike started her career as a researcher and project manager with the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance, and Development (Leiden University), where she worked on a legal cooperation project between the Netherlands and Mali and did socio-legal research in the North of Mali on local courts and on the effects of decentralization on land governance.

She joined the United Nations Development Program as program officer for governance and human rights in the Chad Country Office and later became business analyst in New York. As policy specialist on Legal Empowerment of the Poor for UNDP in New York, she was involved in drafting the Report of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor and created UNDP's first global project on Legal Empowerment of the Poor.

Maaike then returned to The Hague and became first advisor to the National ombudsman of the Netherlands. She led and shaped the Department for Strategy and Policy to significantly enhance the strategic capacity of the National ombudsman institute.

She returned to Mali in 2014, where she designed the Dutch bilateral program on Security and Rule of Law in Mali for the period 2014-2018. Major components of this program were support to the successful community paralegal program of Malian NGO Deme So and bringing together actors from the criminal justice chain in the post-conflict setting of Northern Mali to enhance cooperation at the local level.

She currently lives in New York city with her husband and two daughters.

Director of Knowledge, Policy and Finance Centre, International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)

As Director of the Knowledge, Policy and Finance Centre (KPFC), Ms. Rabia Ferroukhi oversees the Agency's work on a range of renewable energy policy issues including design, socio-economic benefits and integrated resource management. She joined IRENA in 2011 and has over 20 years of experience in the fields of energy, development and environment. She has worked in both public and private sectors, including governmental institutions in the Middle East and North Africa, energy companies in the Mediterranean region and the GCC, and international institutions.

Executive Director of ENERGIA International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy

Sheila Oparaocha has twenty-one years of working experience in the gender and energy sector, a Bachelor’s Degree in Veterinary Medicine and a Master’s Degree in Gender and Development Planning.

Sheila is the Executive Director of the ENERGIA International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy. ENERGIA is an International Network of like-minded organisations and professionals that was established in 1996 to create an institutional base for galvanising action aimed at integrating gender into the energy access agenda of developing countries. Currently, ENERGIA has a programme of work with 31 partner organizations in 18 countries in Africa and Asia. Sheila has over has twenty one years of experience working at the intersectionality of gender equality, women empowerment and energy access, specifically in the areas of women entrepreneurship development, gender mainstreaming in energy programmes, international policy advocacy, research and evidence development, network building and knowledge management. Sheila is the co-chair of the Technical Advisory Group for the Sustainable Development Goal 7 and a permeantent member of the Steering Committee of the Health and Energy Platform for Action.

In the gender and energy sector. Sheila has the overall and primary responsibility for managing ENERGIA’s international programmes, planning, monitoring, reporting and liaising with ENERGIA’s donors. Sheila also provides technical support to ENERGIA’s activities on

Director of the European Commission’s Department for Climate

Ms Yvon Slingenberg is Director in DG Climate Action of the European Commission, responsible for International climate negotiations and mainstreaming of climate issues in EU policies.

During the first two years of the Juncker Commission, she was Senior Adviser in the Cabinet of Commissioner Arias Cañete for Climate Action and Energy, where she was in charge of issues related to the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), Effort Sharing and land-use, energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.

Until November 2014 she was Head of Unit in the Directorate General for Climate Action of the European Commission in charge of the “Implementation of the EU ETS". The ETS is a market based instrument and key tool of EU Climate Policy to drive emission reductions in the most cost-efficient manner. In that capacity, Yvon was in charge of ETS reform, including the Market Stability Reserve, and the role of the ETS in the 2030 climate and energy policy framework. Previously, she was closely involved in the negotiations on the 2020 climate & energy package, and steered the adoption of numerous implementing measures necessary to enable the harmonised approach for phase 3 (2013-2020) of the revised ETS.

From 2003 to 2007 Yvon was in charge of the chemicals policy unit and negotiated the new chemicals legislation (REACH). She has also worked in the Cabinet of Commissioner Wallström on environment and climate issues (2002-2003), for the European Commission's Task-force for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 (Johannesburg), for 4 years (1998-2002) in the international climate negotiations and 5 years in the “Waste Management Policy” Unit.

Yvon is a lawyer of Dutch nationality with a degree in international law (specialisation in environmental law) from the University of Amsterdam. She speaks Dutch (mother tongue), English, French, German and Spanish.