Lucia Cartini

Lucia Cartini holds a Master's degree in Economics, Politics, History, and Development in the Arab Region from the Orientale University of Naples (Italy). She also completed a postgraduate specialization in "Management of International Cooperation for Development" at Stoa Business School - Institute of Studies for Management and Business Administration, Naples, Italy. She was a visiting researcher at IPALMO - Institute for Relations between Italy and the Countries of Africa, Latin America, and the Far Middle East, Rome, Italy. She has worked for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) for the past 24 years in various capacities. In 1994, she joined the United Nations as a Junior Professional Officer (JPO) within the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for Egypt and continued to work in the country until 1999 as an Investment Promotion Officer in a joint project between UNIDO and the Egyptian General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (FATF).

After her field experience, in 2000 she was reassigned to UNIDO Headquarters as Head of Field Operations in the Arab Regional Office, where she was responsible for the technical cooperation portfolio for several Arab countries and the region. She was also responsible for promoting UNIDO's cooperation with international and regional partners: the League of Arab States, ESCWA, AIDMO, the Bank for Islamic Development, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, etc. In September 2006, she was appointed Deputy Director of the UNIDO Regional Office in Egypt. During this period, her work focused on mobilizing resources and partners to expand UNIDO's Technical Cooperation Programme and, in particular, strengthening interactions with the UN team in Egypt and the wider donor community. In February 2011, she moved to UNIDO's Vienna headquarters to serve as coordinator of the Investment and Technology Promotion Network (UNPO) within the Organization's Department of Trade, Technology and Innovation. In this capacity, she managed and monitored nine UNIDO Investment and Technology Promotion Offices (ITPOs), in both emerging and developed countries: Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain; Bonn, Germany; Rome, Italy; Tokyo, Japan; Lagos, Nigeria; Beijing and Shanghai, People's Republic of China; Seoul, Republic of Korea; and Moscow, Russian Federation.

During her tenure, she played a key role in protecting, standardizing, and strengthening the Network's operations, as well as expanding it through the establishment of two new strategic ITPOs in Nigeria (the first ITPO in Africa) and Germany. Since January 2019, she has served as Senior Coordinator of the Regional Division for Arab Countries, responsible for formulating and implementing UNIDO's strategy in the region, including monitoring technical cooperation and operations in the organization's field.