H.E. Ms. María Fernanda Espinosa, is a distinguished diplomat, scholar, and policymaker with over 30 years of experience in multilateral affairs. She was the first woman from Latin America and the Caribbean to be President of the United Nations General Assembly (2018-2019) and has held senior leadership roles in the Government of Ecuador, including Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of National Defense, and the country’s first female Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York. Ms. Espinosa has led international negotiations on a wide range of global issues, including peace and security, disarmament, climate change, sustainable development, Indigenous rights, gender equality, and multilateral cooperation. She is currently President of Cities Alliance and Executive Director of Global Women Leaders for Change and Inclusion. Among her numerous global roles, she is a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group and the Board of Trustees of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center. She serves as Co-chair of the Climate Governance Commission, Co-chair of the Coalition for the UN We Need, Co-chair of the Debt Relief for a Green and Inclusive Recovery, and member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Human Security, among many others. An accomplished academic, Ms. Espinosa was Associate Professor and Researcher at the Latin American Faculty for Social Sciences (FLACSO), where she founded and led the Program on Socio-Environmental Studies. Her academic work focuses on the Amazon, climate change, biodiversity, Indigenous rights, and global governance. She has authored over 50 academic articles, book chapters, reports, and op-eds on sustainable development, foreign policy, peacebuilding, and multilateral reform. She has been the recipient of multiple prestigious fellowships, including from the Robert Bosch Academy, the Ford Foundation, the Society of Woman Geographers, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the German Agency for International Cooperation. Ms. Espinosa’s contributions have earned her numerous international awards, including the Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa from The New School (2025), the Eleanor Roosevelt Award from UNA USA (2022), the Sir Brian Urquhart Award from UNA-UK (2021), and the National Poetry Prize of Ecuador (1990). In 2019, she was named one of the BBC’s 100 most inspiring and influential women globally.