MARUXA CARDAMA
Secretary General
Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport SLoCaT
"I am profoundly honoured and humbled to be selected as Chair of the 68th UN Civil Society Conference. Thanks very much to UN DGC, the NGO Committee and Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski for the trust. I’m eager to roll-up my sleeves and join the team. Building inclusive and sustainable communities is a right and the responsibility of each of us. We have in our hands a catalytic driver for the positive transformation of our societies the SDGs are empowering us to pursue. I can’t wait to learn from all those involved in Conference how are we making it happen!"
Press Release Department of Global Communications Announces Maruxa Cardama as Chair, Sixty-Eighth United Nations Civil Society Conference
BIO
Passionate about social, political, economic and environmental justice for human development, Maruxa specialises in integrated urban and territorial development. Over her 17-year career, Maruxa has worked with multilateral institutions, national, regional and local governments, NGOs and philanthropy in 33 countries across continents to develop public policies, capacity and implementation projects, and multi-stakeholder partnerships.
Maruxa currently serves as Secretary General of the Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport SLoCaT. Previously she founded Communitas, the multi-stakeholder coalition which pioneered knowledge-based advocacy for the Sustainable Development Goal on Cities & Human Settlements. Maruxa also served as the Secretary General of the Network of Regional Governments for Sustainable Development (nrg4SD), and during her tenure co-facilitated the engagement of local and regional governments in the UN Rio +20 Conference. She has also held posts as Senior Policy Specialist in Cities Alliance-UNOPS, as well as in local and regional government in the UK and Spain. In 2004-2010, she was Deputy Director of the Representation of the South West of England to the EU, where she led on the sustainability portfolio for a partnership of regional authorities, academia and the private sector.
Prolific public speaker and analyst, Maruxa is member of the Future Earth community. In recent years, she has served in the UCL- Nature Sustainability Expert Panel on the Urban Science-Policy Interface and as Adviser on Global Agendas to the Conference of European Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe CPMR. Her formal training was as a lawyer, as well as in EU law and in development economics.