Maria-Francesca Spatolisano

Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs, UN DESA, since March 2019. At the beginning of February 2021, she was also appointed Officer-in-Charge of the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology and then Acting Envoy on Technology in January 2022 in her personal capacity.

Ms. Spatolisano has over 30 years of experience in public service including extensive senior leadership in multilateral affairs. She has served as the European Union Ambassador to the OECD and UNESCO, Monaco and Andorra. She was a member of the EU Delegation to the United Nations, serving as the Head of its Economic and Trade Section, covering all issues related to trade, development and environmental policies in the Second Committee and ECOSOC; she also represented the EC to the Fifth Committee.

Before joining the UN, she was responsible for International Organizations and Development Dialogue with other Donors in the European Commission’s Directorate General for Development Cooperation. In this capacity, she has assured the EU presence and developed EU positions on development policy in several international fora including the United Nations, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, OECD, G-7 and the G-20.