RAQUEL LAGUNAS

Head of Gender Team, UNDP

Raquel Lagunas is the Head of the UNDP Gender Team, GPN, based in New York. Raquel has more than 20 years of experience working on gender equality in different development settings. Previously Raquel was the Senior Policy Advisor on Gender Mainstreaming for UNDP in New York, creating and leading the UNDP Gender Equality Seal. She has also worked as a Gender Regional Advisor for UNDP in Latin-American, and prior to that she was a Programme Officer in UNDP El Salvador.

Raquel has advised Governments across the world and large Development Organizations, such as the World Food Programme, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and IUCN.  She spent 10 years in Latin America, and co-founded America Latina Genera. Before she led a Master’s Degree in the Gender Studies Programme at the Instituto Complutense de EstudiosInternationales (ICEI) and she has also served as a senior researcher for think tanks in Madrid, as teacher of a range of MA programmes, and she has lectured at SIPA/Columbia and Duke University. 

Raquel holds an MA in International Studies: Gender and Development, and a second one in Sexual Sciences from Universad de Alcalá, and a BA in Philosophy from Universidad de Salamanca.