Director-General Ghada Waly

Ghada Fathi Waly is the Director-General/ Executive Director of the United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV)/ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) since 1 February 2020. She holds the rank of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. She is the first woman, first African, and first Arab to lead UNOV and UNODC. During her time in the post, she has expanded the normative and operational activities of UNODC, which covers countering corruption, addressing organized crime and the world drug problem, and preventing and countering terrorism. Under her leadership, UNODC’s field presence has grown to reach 150 countries, and the Office’s delivery has increased by 60%.

She is a strong advocate for social justice, disability inclusion, and the empowerment of women, children, and youth across the work of UNOV/UNODC. Ms. Waly’s work experience includes 35 years in the field of poverty reduction, social protection, and international development. She served as Minister of Social Solidarity of Egypt from March 2014 until 2020. For 6 years, she also served as the Coordinator of the Inter-Ministerial Committee for Social Justice and chaired the Executive Council of Arab Ministers of Social Affairs in the Leagueof Arab States. She was the Chairperson of Nasser Social Bank, a pro-poor developmental financial institution, and she chaired the boards of the National Center for Social and Criminology Research, the National Fund for Drug and Addiction Control and the National Authority of Pensions and Social Insurance, which serves 25 million Egyptians, for the same period. She further served as advisor for the Chairman of Egypt’s financial supervisory authority and on the board of Egypt’s consumer protection authority.

Prior to that, she held leadership positions as Managing Director of the Social Fund for Development (SFD), a multimillion-dollar SME Fund. She also served as Assistant Resident Representative for poverty reduction at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), where she was responsible for coordinating the Millennium Development Goals reports and launched the National Strategy for Micro Finance. She was also the first Program Director of CARE International (an international non-governmental organization) in Egypt, working in the field of poverty alleviation, and Chairperson of the Red Crescent Association.

 Ghada Waly holds an MA and a BA from Colorado State University (US) in Humanities; she also holds a diploma in international development and a diploma in Project Management. She is certified in Micro Finance from University of Colorado Boulder. She is fluent in Arabic, English and French and has a working knowledge of Spanish.

When women are equitably represented in the justice system, everyone benefits and our societies become more just, fair and resilient. At UNODC, I’m committed to elevating and empowering women in law enforcement to build criminal justice institutions that are more effective, transparent and accountable. This conference provides an important platform to further amplify women’s voices and help them build lasting networks to lead in law and justice.