Marco Caesar van der Ree

Biography

Marco van der Ree is a manager of international development and environment programmes and with experience in organizational management. He has worked globally but with a focus on Latin America, and Eastern/Southern Africa. A common thread in his work has been a focus on local and community development. He currently manages the Office of the Executive Coordinator of the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme in Bonn, Germany, is a member of the Senior Management Team and the organization’s environment focal point. He holds a Doctorandus (Masters) degree in International Relations from the University of Amsterdam, with a focus on international environmental policy and a thesis on Brazilian biodiversity policy for which he did a field research with the University of Brasilia and the National Research Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology (CENARGEN) in Brazil.
Since 1999 he has been working for different entities within the United Nations, UNCDF, UNOPS, UNDP andUNV in both field (Maputo, Mozambique) and headquarters (New York, USA / Bonn, Germany) positions. He developed and supervised projects in community sustainable development (GEF Small Grant Programme), decentralization/local governance, microfinance, and rural roads. He also worked in Monitoring & Evaluation and the development of Management Information Systems, and organized numerous large regional and global workshops.

Before working with the UN, he worked as a researcher with a Brazilian socio‐environmental NGO, the Institute for Society Population and Nature (ISPN). This included socio‐economic research of the traditional populations, biodiversity policy and sustainable use. He also did the daily management of the UNDP GEF SGP in Brazil. During the three years in Brazil he was a member of the coordinating Committee of the Cerrado NGO
Network, Coordinated a chapter on Biodiversity in the Rio+5 publication of the Brazilian Forum of NGOs and Social Movements for the Environment and Development, and served as an advisor for a WWF publication on the root causes of Biodiversity Loss.
He likes to spend his free time with his family. He also very much enjoys a wide range of music and rollerblading along the Rhine.

This biography was last updated on August 27, 2008