Marieta Sakalian has 30 years of experience in the environment and sustainable development, more specifically in ecosystems and natural resource management, mainstreaming biodiversity across sectors and systems, intergovernmental and interagency negotiations and networking, partnerships, resource mobilization, management of large-scale projects and programmes and strategy development and implementation. This experience spans working at the global, regional, and country levels with governments, intergovernmental organizations, development agencies, non-governmental organization, academic and research institutions and local communities.
Marieta has worked in UNEP at different capacities for last 20 years having served most recently as UNEP Senior Programme Management/Liaison Officer with Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO), International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) and the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR). As the GEF Biodiversity mainstreaming portfolio manager she led the development and implementation of US$ 402M UNEP GEF agricultural biodiversity and multi-focal area portfolio of projects and programmes supporting 47 developing countries worldwide.
Prior joining UNEP she spent 10 years leading a variety of conservation and development projects internationally, working with Unites States Agency for International Development (USAID); Biodiversity support programme/ c/o WWF International, The Nature Conservancy, and World Resources Institute (WRI); Associates in Rural Development (ARD); and International Plant Genetics Resource Institute (IPGRI) currently known as Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).
Marieta is a Bulgarian national and holds a MSc degree in Molecular and Functional Biology from Kliment Ochridsky University, Bulgaria and a PhD degree in Genetics, Molecular and Cell biology from the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Czech (former Czechoslovak) Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic.
