Securing Competitiveness for the Mediterranean region Venice, Italy. 1-2 October 2012 BIOGRAPHIES UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe Yolanda Valle-Neff, Director By decision of the Director-General of UNESCO, Yolanda Valle- Neff has been appointed Director of the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe, Venice (Italy). Since April 2012, she is leading a team of 33 people in Venice, Sarajevo, Tirana, Skopje and Podgorica. Yolanda Valle-Neff joined UNESCO in 2002, as Director of Budget. Beyond her responsibilities in this position, she had particular responsibility also for representing the Organization in the UN Chief Executive Board’s High-Level Committee on Management (CEB-HLCM). In this capacity, she notably chaired a Working Group on the Cost Recovery Policy and participated in interagency missions on transaction costs in the framework of the Delivering as One initiative. From mid-2010, she was a Special Advisor on issues pertaining to UN reform. Prior to joining UNESCO, Yolanda Valle-Neff worked for the French Red Cross as Director of Finance (2000-2002) and for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in a variety of positions from 1988-2000, eventually serving as Director of Budget and Finance Service (1996-2000) where she was responsible for budget and strategic planning, accounting and treasury, as well as for all financial information management systems. She has also worked with Bistrial (1987-1988), Kraft Foods France (1979-1987) and began her career in 1978 with Coopers & Lybrand, the International Chartered Accountants. Born in 1952, Yolanda Valle-Neff holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Paris X (1974) and an MBA in Economics and Finance from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (1977). She is a member of various professional associations and has lectured and delivered seminars on financial management, economics and finance. She also served as the elected Vice-President of the Finance Commission of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (2001-2005) in a voluntary capacity. Philippe Pypaert, Programme Specialist Philippe Pypaert joined the UNESCO Office in Venice, in November 1994, as a Programme Specialist in Environmental Sciences. Since 1998, he is also the UNESCO Regional Hydrologist for Europe. Over the years, he has coordinated regional activities related to some of the major environmental programmes of UNESCO, such as MAB, IHP and CSI, as well as cross-disciplinary initiatives related to Traditional Knowledge. As Project Officer, he has also coordinated the implementation of extrabudgetary projects funded by the Italian government concerning Venice and its lagoon (1994-2000), the Adriatic Sea Environmental Master Plan (2004-2006) and Environmental Education for Sustainable Development in South-Eastern Europe (2004-2007). He is acting since then as a focal point for ESD- related activities in SEE. Philippe Pypaert was born in Ath, Belgium, in 1962. He graduated as an agricultural engineer from the Faculty of Agronomy, Gembloux (Belgium), with a specialization in rural economy and sociology. Between 1987 and 1991, he pursued a doctorate (PhD) in environmental sciences on the subject of 'environmental planning and methodology on a local and regional scale' at the Luxemburg University Foundation, Arlon (Belgium), and obtained a PhD in Environmental Science in November 2003. His major specializations are on environmental studies, environmental information systems, and education for sustainable development, territorial planning and rural sociology. Global Footprint Network Mathis Wackernagel, President Mathis Wackernagel is co-creator of the Ecological Footprint and President of Global Footprint Network, an international sustainability think tank. He has worked on sustainability on six continents and lectured at more than 100 universities. Mathis Wackernagel previously served as the director of the Sustainability Program at Redefining Progress in Oakland, California, and as director at the Centro de Estudios para la Sustentabilidad at Anáhuac University in Xalapa, Mexico. In 2011, he was appointed Frank H. T. Rhodes Class of 1956 Visiting Professor at Cornell University. After earning a degree in mechanical engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Mathis Wackernagel completed his Ph.D. in community and regional planning at The University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. There, with his advisor Professor William Rees, he co-created the Ecological Footprint concept, a resource accounting system that measures how much nature we have and how much we use. Mathis Wackernagel was the co-recipient of the 2012 Blue Planet Prize, the 2012 Kenneth E. Boulding Memorial Award and the 2011 Zayed International Prize for the Environment. His other awards include an honorary doctorate from the University of Berne in 2007, a 2007 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, a 2006 WWF Award for Conservation Merit and the 2005 Herman Daly Award of the U.S. Society for Ecological Economics. He has authored or contributed to more than 50 peer-reviewed papers, numerous articles and reports and various books on sustainability that focus on the question of embracing limits and developing metrics for sustainability, including “Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth”; “Sharing Nature’s Interest”; “Der Ecological Footprint,” and WWF International’s “Living Planet Report.” Alessandro Galli, Senior Scientist of Global Footprint Network Alessandro Galli is a Senior Scientist and the Mediterranean Program Director at Global Footprint Network. He oversees the National Footprint Accounts and contributes to research on the Ecological Footprint methodology and technical publications. Alessandro Galli’s research focuses on the analysis of human dependence on natural resources and ecological services through the use of sustainability indicators and environmental accounting methods. Previously, Alessandro Galli was a technical advisor with the Emirates Wildlife Society (EWS-WWF) on the Al Basama Al Beeiya (Ecological Footprint) Initiative in the United Arab Emirates. Alessandro Galli holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences from the University of Siena in Italy. He is the co-author of several publications, including 13 articles in peer-reviewed journals, the article “Global Biodiversity: Indicators of Recent Declines” published in the leading journal Science, and the WWF's 2008 and 2012 Living Planet Reports. He is also member of the editorial board of the journal Resources: Natural Resources and Management, and was a MARSICO Visiting Scholar at University of Denver, Colorado, USA, in April 2011. Please send media requests to: Olivera Jovanovska Scott Mattoon Communication and Media Assistant Communications Manager UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science Global Footprint Network and Culture in Europe, Venice (Italy) [email protected] [email protected] +1 510 839-8879 +39 041 260 1541 .