Rebeca Grynspan Mayufis was born on 14 December 1955 and is a Costa Rican economist who has been serving as Secretary-General of the UN Trade and Development since 13 September 2021.
18 Facts About Rebeca Grynspan
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Rebeca Grynspan previously served as Director of UNDP's Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, appointed to the position by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in December 2005.
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Rebeca Grynspan was the Vice President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998.
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Rebeca Grynspan obtained a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in economics from the University of Costa Rica and later on a Master of Arts in Economics from Sussex University.
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Early in her career, Rebeca Grynspan was a professor and researcher at the Economic Science Research Institute at the University of Costa Rica.
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Rebeca Grynspan has held various official functions in her country such as Vice-President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998 and concurrently as Housing Minister from 1996 to 1998, Coordinating Minister of Economy from 1995 to 1996, Coordinating Minister of Social Affairs from 1994 to 1998 and Vice-Minister of Finance from 1986 to 1988.
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Rebeca Grynspan was appointed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to be the eighth secretary-general of UN Trade and Development on 13 September 2021.
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Rebeca Grynspan is the first woman to hold this position in the history of the organization.
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Rebeca Grynspan served as Director of the Subregional Headquarters in Mexico of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean from 2001 to 2006, where she served as Co-Chair of the International Food Policy Research Institute's Executive Board.
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Rebeca Grynspan was a member of the UN Millennium Project's Task Force on Poverty and Economic Development and of the UN High-Level Panel on Financing for Development.
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Rebeca Grynspan served as an Assistant Secretary-General and Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the United Nations Development Programme from 2006 to 2010.
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Rebeca Grynspan is a member of the Program for the Support of Women's Leadership and Representation of the Inter-American Development Bank, and she is former vice president of the board of directors of the International Food Policy Research Institute based in Washington, DC.
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Rebeca Grynspan was unanimously elected Secretary General of the Ibero-American General Secretariat, at a special meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers on 24 February 2014 in Mexico City, in which representatives of all 22 member countries were present.
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Rebeca Grynspan succeeded in the office Enrique V Iglesias, who had held the position since the establishment of SEGIB in 2005.
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In September 2016, Rebeca Grynspan was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to serve as a member of the Lead Group of the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement.
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In early 2021, Rebeca Grynspan was appointed by the G20 to the High-Level Independent Panel on financing the global commons for pandemic preparedness and response, co-chaired by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Lawrence Summers.
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In 2021, Rebeca Grynspan became a member of the G20 High-Level Independent Panel on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.
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In 2014 and 2015, Rebeca Grynspan was recognized as one of the 50 leading intellectuals of Latin America and, in 2017, she received a Forbes Excellence Award and was granted the Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso X The Wise by the Spanish Government.