Roula Majdalani

Ms. Majdalani is Senior Climate Change Advisor at the Director General’s Office of ICARDA. She has a long-standing career with the United Nations, holding different development and political portfolios in the Middle East and Africa.

From 2010 to 2021 she served as the Director of the Arab Center for Climate Change Policies and Cluster Leader of Climate Change and Natural Resource Sustainability at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN-ESCWA). She has extensive experience in strengthening inter-governmental collaboration on the sustainable management of natural resources with a focus on water, energy and food security under challenging conditions of climate change. She joined ESCWA in 1989 and served as a Human Settlements Officer, First Economic Affairs Officer on water resources management and Chief of the Technical Cooperation. She was assigned as Acting Deputy Executive Secretary for Programs Support in an interim period in 2018 and was entrusted to manage the ESCWA Technology Center based in Amman in an interim period (2016-2018) to optimize delivery on Technology Transfer for Sustainable Development.

Ms. Majdalani holds a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Syracuse University and previously worked on urban development project with Dar Al-Handasah Consultants, based in London, UK (1985-1988). She has recently been appointed to serve on the Global Water Partnership.

Moreover, she has served on several advisory boards for international and regional think tanks, strategically guiding development programs, resource mobilization and partnership development, including the Center for Strategic and International Studies (based in Washington) and the International Center on Biosaline Agriculture (based in Dubai), the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS) and the Stockholm Industry Water Award (SIWA) panel member (based in Stockholm).