Rebeca Grynspan


Rebeca Grynspan Mayufis is a Costa Rican economist, the current Ibero-American Secretary General, a former UN Under-Secretary-General, and the Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. She was the Vice President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998. Grynspan previously served as Director of UNDP's Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, appointed to the position by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in December 2005.

Early life and Career

She is the daughter of Manuel Grynspan Burstin and Sara Mayufis Schapiro, immigrants from Poland of Jewish ancestry. She is married to Saúl Weisleder, deputy for the National Liberation Party, and they have two children. Grynspan studied economics and sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and later obtained a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in economics from the University of Costa Rica and later on a Master of Arts in Economics from Sussex University.
Grynspan has been a professor and researcher at the Economic Science Research Institute at the University of Costa Rica. She is also a member of the Inter-American Dialogue.

Political life

Before joining the UN, Grynspan held various official functions in her country such as Vice-President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998 and concurrently as Housing Minister from 1996 to 1998, Coordinating Minister of Economy from 1995 to 1996, Coordinating Minister of Social Affairs from 1994 to 1998 and Vice-Minister of Finance from 1986 to 1988.
She served as Director of the Subregional Headquarters in Mexico of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean from 2001 to 2006, where she also served as Co-Chair of the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Executive Board. She was also a member of the UN Millennium Project’s Task Force on Poverty and Economic Development and of the UN High-Level Panel on Financing for Development.

United Nations Development Programme

Grynspan was appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the position of UN Under-Secretary-General and the United Nations Development Programme Associate Administrator on Feb 1, 2010. At the UN and prior to her current appointment, Ms. Grynspan served as Assistant-Secretary-General and Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the United Nations Development Programme from 2006 to 2010.
She is a member of the Inter-American Development Bank's Program for the Support of Women´s Leadership and Representation ; She is former Vice President of the Board of Directors of the International Food Policy Research Institute based in Washington, D.C.

SEGIB

Grynspan was unanimously elected Secretary General of the Ibero-American Secretary General, SEGIB, in a special meeting of the Ministers of External Relations on February 24, 2014 in Mexico City, in which representatives of all 22 member countries were present. She succeeded in the office Enrique V. Iglesias who had held the position since the establishment of SEGIB in 2005.
In September 2016, Grynspan was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to serve as member of the Lead Group of the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement.

Awards & Recognitions

In 2014 and 2015, she was recognized as one of the 50 leading intellectuals of Latin America and, in 2017, she received a Forbes Excellence Award and was granted the Grand Cross of Civil Order of Alfonso X “The Wise” by the Spanish Government. In recognition of her professional achievements, the University of Extremadura and the European University conferred her an honorary doctorate.

Boards and Councils

Grynspan is a member of the Global Councils on the Future of International Governance, Public-Private Cooperation & Sustainable Development, and the Poverty and Sustainable Development at the World Economic Forum. Likewise, she is part of the Steering Committee of the UNICEF Scaling-up Nutrition Movement, and the Governing Council of the Society for International Development, a global network of individuals and professionals engaged in development. She is also a member of the ILO Global Commission on the Future of Work.
She is co-chair of the Fourth Sector Group within the framework of the Fourth Sector Development Initiative. She is an active member of the Women Political Leaders Global Forum and the W20, two initiatives that seek to increase and consolidate the presence and influence of women in leadership positions.