Magdy Martinez-Soliman

About Magdy Martinez-Soliman

Magdy Martinez-Soliman is a development expert and a lawyer. A former Director of the Spanish Development Aid Agency, AECID, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he ranked as an Undersecretary, and a former UN Assistant Secretary-General, he has held several senior management positions in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN. He currently works as UNDP Resident Representative in Venezuela. A lawyer by training, a former practicing barrister and Assistant Professor of International Law, he has worked and written on Political Systems and provided legal counseling in Constitutional and Administrative Law. In his career, he has been State Secretary for Youth in the Spanish National Government, CEO of two public corporations and member of the Organising Committee of the Olympic Games in Barcelona 92. He was also Deputy Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office, in-charge of the relations with the Parliament of Andalusia and elected member of the Municipal Council of his hometown Malaga. He has been working for the UN over the past twenty five years, focusing on Institutional Development of Legislatures, the Judiciary, Electoral Legislation, Anti-corruption, Public Financial Management, Democratic Transitions and National Dialogue. He was posted in Burundi, Togo, Bangladesh, New York, Senegal, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago and Chile. He was UNDP\'s Senior Governance Advisor for the 18 West African countries from to 2003; until 2006 he was the Practice Manager of UNDP’s Democratic Governance Team. That year he was appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan the first Executive Director of the UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF). From 2008 to 2012, he was the UN Resident Coordinator in Mexico and UNDP’s Resident Representative in this country. From 2012 to September 2013 he has been appointed UNDP\'s Deputy Assistant Administrator and Deputy Director of the Bureau for Development Policy. On 1st October 2014, he was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon as UN Assistant Secretary-General, Assistant Administrator of UNDP and Director of its Bureau for Policy and Programme Support. On 1st July 2018 he was appointed UNDP\'s Resident Representative for Trinidad and Tobago, Aruba, Suriname, Curacao and Sint Maarten. His last UN posts were to be UNDP\'s Resident Representative in Barbados and the OECS (20••••20) and UNDP Resident Representative a.i. in Chile (2022). In 2023, he started the international division of a consultancy firm and worked as Sr. Advisor to the UN RCs in the Pacific.

Experience

1. Resident Representative a i

   Undp

   Jul 2023 — Present · VE

Education

• Universidad de Málaga

  Doctor of Law (J.D.), International Law and Legal Studies, JD

  1983 — 1988

• Lycee Francais de Madrid

  Baccalaureat, Liberal Arts and Sciences, General Studies and Humanities

  1975 — 1978