The Secretariat
The secretariat of the Adaptation Fund Board consists of an international staff based in Washington, DC. The secretariat provides research, advisory, administrative, and an array of other services to the Board.
Marcia Levaggi | Manager | mlevaggi@thegef.org | +1 (202) 473-6390
Marcia, an Argentinean national, joined the Adaptation Fund Board Secretariat as manager in February 2009. She is a lawyer (University of Buenos Aires, 1985) and a career diplomat (National Foreign Service Institute, 1989). As a diplomat, she was posted in Zurich, Switzerland and, until joining the secretariat, was head of the Technical and Economic Cooperation section of the Argentine Embassy in South Africa.
From April 2001 to January 2007 she worked at the office of the former representative for international environmental negotiations, Ambassador Raúl Estrada Oyuela. During this period she was the Argentinean negotiator at the Montreal Protocol and climate change meetings. In 2004 she chaired the Executive Committee of the Multilateral Fund of the Montreal Protocol as well as several bodies and working groups at the climate change and ozone meetings. In 2007, she was honored with the Outstanding Contributors Award by the United Nations Environment Programme on the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol.
Mikko Ollikainen | Adaptation Officer | mollikainen@thegef.org | +1 (202) 458-8912
Mikko Ollikainen, a Finnish national, joined the Adaptation Fund Board Secretariat as an Adaptation Officer in October 2009. Prior to joining the GEF, Mikko worked in the World Bank Carbon Finance Unit as a Carbon Finance Specialist. At the CFU he was a deal manager for afforestation/ reforestation Clean Development Mechanism projects in Africa in the BioCarbon Fund portfolio, including the first African UNFCCC-approved A/R CDM project in Uganda, registered by the CDM Executive Board in August 2009. In addition to assigned projects, he worked in the development of the BioCF portfolio, including new areas such as agricultural soil carbon. Before his assignment in the CFU, Mikko worked for two years in the World Bank reconstruction program of the Indonesian province of Aceh, following the 2004 tsunami, supervising and implementing projects in the fields of environment and natural resources management. Mikko worked for two years in Beijing, China, as a country representative of an environment consulting firm and as the coordinator of an EU-funded policy research project prior to joining the World Bank.
Mikko holds a M.Sc. degree in ecology and biodiversity research from the University of Turku, Finland, and a diploma in international trade from the University of Tampere, Finland.
Daouda, a Senegalese national, joined the Adaptation Fund Board Secretariat as an Adaptation Officer in November 2010. Prior to this position, Daouda worked for three years in the Environment & Energy Unit of the UN Development Program's regional centre in Dakar, covering Western and Central Africa. His main responsibility was to provide support to UNDP country offices in mobilizing funds from the Global Environment Facility, designing and supervising the implementation of biodiversity and land degradation projects. Prior to that, he worked for one year at the Ecological Monitoring Centre in Dakar, Senegal, as an expert and research officer in soil carbon sequestration, agriculture, and land degradation.
Daouda has seven years of experience in the design, implementation and management of environmental research projects dealing with the biological regulation of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations both in Senegal and the US, including a three-year research associate position at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He has authored several scientific publications and communications on the topic. Daouda holds a PhD in Ecology from the University Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI) and a master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Bourgogne in France.
Marcelo Jordan | Operations Officer | rmjordan@thegef.org
Marcelo Jordan, a Bolivian national, joined the Adaptation Fund Board Secretariat in October 2011 as an Operations Officer. Marcelo comes from the UNFCCC secretariat where he gained experience first within the CDM support team, working as CDM Registry Operator, and subsequently within the Finance support team. In this last assignment he had the opportunity to support the SBI, the CMP and the AWG-LCA processes of the UNFCCC on issues related to the financial mechanism of the Convention including the Adaptation Fund. Prior to joining the UNFCCC secretariat, Marcelo worked in his home country, Bolivia, where he developed a career in finance and investments. He served as head of the investments department of the Central Bank of Bolivia within the Foreign Exchange Reserves Management Area. In addition to that, Marcelo has also worked as a consultant on carbon finance issues for the former Bolivian Clean Development Office, and also as advisor in international finance to some Bolivian private banks. He also taught finance-related subjects and environmental economics at different Bolivian universities.
His academic background includes a Master in finance from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand and a Master from the University of Oxford in the field of environmental policy.
Shyla, a US national, joined the AFB Secretariat in October 2010 as an Adaptation Associate. Prior to joining the secretariat, Shyla worked for the World Bank and Caribbean Community Climate Change Center as a consultant and project manager on the Special Program for Adaptation to Climate Change, which is being implemented in Dominica, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines. Her work also included the production of a toolkit for developing countries to integrate efforts on the climate change, biodiversity, and land degradation conventions in developing countries. She has also worked on climate change/adaptation issues at the UNFCCC and UNDP Thailand Country Office. Shyla holds Bachelors degrees in Applied Ecology and International Studies from the University of California, Irvine and a Masters in Environmental Management from Yale University, during which she studied the mainstreaming of adaptation into national development plans, and methodologies for project prioritization.
Aya Mimura | Program Assistant | amimura@thegef.org
Aya, a Japanese national, joined the Adaptation Fund Board Secretariat in April 2011 as a Program Assistant.Prior to this position, Aya worked for UNEP's International Environmental Technology Centre in Shiga, Japan for six years. Within its water and sanitation program, she engaged in a series of operational projects and programs including "Support for Environmental Management for the Iraqi Marshlands," one of the UN's largest environmental programs implemented in Iraq during the post-conflict period. She also has extensive professional experience in conference service as well as in semi-governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations, mostly in environmental fields.
Aya holds a BA in economics from Momoyama Gakuin University, Japan, and a master's in international studies from the University of Birmingham in the UK. Most recently, she acquired a graduate certificate of Advanced Studies in Environmental Diplomacy from the University of Geneva in Switzerland.
Samer Dweik | Accreditation Associate | sdweik@thegef.org
Samer, a US national, joined the Adaptation Fund Board Secretariat in September 2010 on a short-term basis. Samer graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, CT with a BA in International Studies and a focus on the Middle East.