Ana-Maria Lebada

Ana-Maria Lebada is a seasoned expert in the UN General Assembly, with a decade of experience in knowledge management and strategy (partnerships and communications). Since 2013, she has delivered analytical, policy, and political advisory services on UN’s latest development, financing, and reform agendas to UNICEF, UN-Habitat, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Development Programme, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the Permanent Mission of Romania to the UN, and Friendship Ambassadors Foundation. 

Her Master’s thesis for Columbia University, “Partnerships Are Our Government Now: the Shifting Politics of Development in the United Nations,” explored how the aid-driven approach to development is increasingly changing into a partnerships-cooperation approach.

A national of Romania, Lebada joined IISD in 2014 as a thematic expert on the 2030 Agenda for the SDG Knowledge Hub and a writer for the Earth Negotiations Bulletin. Since then, she has covered a myriad of UN General Assembly intergovernmental processes and high-level events on the Sustainable Development Goals, financing for development, oceans, forests, migration, climate, science, technology and innovation, and the reform of the UN development system.