Academic Council Debate Series: Sustainability and Challenges for the Development Progress - Zürich - 15 May 2012 (17:15 - 19:00)

In his capacity as Senior Advisor and Head of Unit for Strategic Communication, Adam Rogers advises the UN Development Programme (UNDP) on donor relations, advocacy and public affairs and manages a team that is responsible for communication outreach in Western Europe. UNDP is the UN's global development network, an organization advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources. It works through a network of 134 country offices, delivering $5 billion in development assistance annually to 176 countries worldwide.
From his office at UNDP’s Representation Office in Geneva, Switzerland, Adam also supports UNDP’s Bureau for Development Policy, in particular in the area of communication for development, access to information, and communication for empowerment. He is an advisor to UNDP’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, supporting crisis relief, serving, for example, in Haiti immediately after the earthquake. Prior to joining the UN system in 1994, Rogers worked as a journalist, an author, and as an entrepreneur. He has written several books, including The Earth Summit: A planetary reckoning; Taking Action: an environmental guide for you and your community; and The Intrepid Traveler: getting the ultimate experience for your travel dollars anywhere on earth.
Rogers received his BA in International Affairs from Northern Arizona University, his MA in Communication and Technology from the University of Alberta, and his MBA through a joint programme at New York University, the London School of Economics and HEC Paris (TRIUM).

Constanza Martinez is Senior Policy Officer at the Global Policy Unit of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN.) Her background is in international environmental law on which she obtained an LLM in 1998. Before joining IUCN in January 2008, she worked as a consultant for organizations such as ISDR, UNEP, UNEP/GEF, WIPO and taught at the Graduate Institute of International Studies (HEI). Issues covered through consultancy contracts range from governance in disaster risk reduction, transfer of environmentally sound technologies, trade and environment, among other.
Constanza has also worked for environmental convention secretariats including the Basel Convention on Waste, Climate Change and other UN organizations and initiatives, such as UNCTAD’s Bio-trade, UNITAR’s Environmental Law Programme. At the Basel Convention, she represented the Convention at the
WTO, particularly in negotiations on environmental goods and services and desgned and implemented capacity building initiatives.
In her current position, Constanza’s tasks include to build capacity to influence global policy processes and follow cross-cutting fora processes and subjects such as the agendas of G8/G20 and the the Rio 2012 conference. She also contributes to maintaining and introducing modifications, as necessary, to the unique governance structure of IUCN.
Her ambition is to contribute to bringing environmental protection into non-traditional environmental processes and “communities,” making the case for natural capital as an essential input in the development equation.

Ronal Gainza-Carmenates works for the Advisory Services Unit of the Green Economy Initiative at the Economics and Trade Branch of UNEP. He is supporting Latin America and Caribbean countries in implementing green economy policies. Ronal is currently involved in conducting green economy scoping studies which assess countries potential of greening their economies including strengths, challenges, investment gaps and enabling conditions necessary for achieving a green transformation.


Prior to joint UNEP in 2011, Ronal Gainza-Carmenates worked for four years as environmental officer for the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment of Cuba (2000-2004). He advised enterprises to implement environmental management practices. More recently, he collaborated for three years (2007-2010) with the Research Group on Economics and Management of the Environment from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne where he undertook successful research in the field of climate change and political economy, particularly the implications that a post-2012 global climate policy would have on developing countries.


Ronal has a multidisciplinary education. He holds a PhD in Environmental Economics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (2011), a Master's Degree in Environmental Engineering (2004), a Bachelor of Biology (2000) as well as postgraduate certificates in Waste Management and Environmental Management for Business. He is author of scientific articles published in peer-reviewed journals and UNEP's reports on green economy.