Marialena Vyzaki is a senior gender expert with 12 years of work experience on the promotion of gender equality and women’s economic empowerment in sustainable development, across economic sectors (Food, agriculture and forestry; Energy; Water supply and sanitation; Manufacturing; Transport; Sustainable cities; and Financial services). She has worked for several International Financial Institutions (IFIs) such as the World Bank Group (WBG), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) and the European Investment Bank (EIB); as well as UN agencies, such as UNWomen West and Central Africa Regional Office, UNWomen Egypt, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and United Nations Environment Programme/Barcelona Convention (UNEP/MAP). She has been working on the nexus of gender and climate change/environment since 2013, having led the development of various analytical/research pieces and distilling lessons learned from operations across regions (Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East). Examples include the Gender and Climate Finance toolkit (2X Global), the guidance note on Gender and Sustainable Cities (World Bank), women’s participation in environmental markets (the W+ Standard) and green jobs opportunities for women in Africa (UNWomen). She is also well-versed in gender-lens investing, human rights-based approaches to development, legal transition and gender-responsive policy-making. Ms Vyzaki has conducted field work in Greece, Mexico, Zambia, Kenya, Senegal, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Belarus, Turkey, Jordan and Egypt and is fluent in English, French and Greek. She is a qualified lawyer, a member of the Athens Bar Association (since 2012); and a certified Participatory Gender Audit (PGA) Facilitator by the ITC-ILO (Turin, 2017). She has earned an BA in Law from the University of Athens and a MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
