Ms. Diann Black-Layne is the Director of the Department of Environment in Antigua and Barbuda and serves as the country's Ambassador for Climate Change. She has worked in environmental management for over 25 years and has been engaged in international climate policy since 2008.

Ms. Black-Layne was first elected as Co-Chair of the Standing Committee on Finance (SCF) in 2012, becoming one of its inaugural leaders alongside a representative from Switzerland. She was re-elected to the role in 2024, continuing her longstanding contributions to global climate finance dialogue. Her leadership extends to previous service on the Transitional Committees that established both the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the Loss and Damage Fund.

She has also served as a Board Member of both the GCF and the Adaptation Fund and has represented Antigua and Barbuda as the national focal point to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) for over 15 years. As one of the lead finance negotiators for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), Ms. Black-Layne is a passionate advocate for articulating and communicating the unique national circumstances of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the global climate discourse.

 

Mr. Petrus Muteyauli is the Head of Multilateral Environmental Agreements at the Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism in Namibia. His professional background is in environmental and tourism economics, having served as a Chief Environmental and Tourism Economist. 

Throughout his career, he has played a key role in establishing and operationalizing the Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia. He has also been instrumental in promoting synergies among the Rio Conventions and their associated financial mechanisms within the country. 

Currently, Petrus serves as a Board Member of the Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia. He previously held positions as a member of the Adaptation Fund and as Rapporteur of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) under the UNFCCC. 

He is dedicated to addressing environmental challenges through an economic lens, striving to create a balance between environmental sustainability and economic growth.

Ms. Elena Pereira is a senior climate finance advisor with a Master’s degree in Carbon Finance from the University of Edinburgh and a Bachelor’s degree in Finance. She has over 15 years of experience in climate change, project development, international development, multilateral cooperation, and research. Throughout her career, she has worked with a wide range of stakeholders, including governments, private sector, civil society, and local communities.

She has held key roles within international organizations such as GIZ and UNEP and is currently the climate finance advisor for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of Honduras. In recent years, she has played a strategic role in the development of national climate policies, a green taxonomy, and adaptation strategies aligned with global climate frameworks.

As an international negotiator, Elena has led Honduras’ delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and chaired the Independent Association of Latin America and the Caribbean (AILAC). Since 2021, she has served as the lead climate finance negotiator for both Honduras and AILAC, actively contributing to key climate finance negotiations, such as the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG).

Elena currently serves as a Board Member of the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) and as a member of the Standing Committee on Finance (SCF), representing the Group of Latin America and the Caribbean (GRULAC). Within the SCF, she has co-facilitated the SCF Forum since 2024.

Ms. Patriciah Roy Akullo is the Social Safeguards and Gender Expert in the Climate Finance Unit, Department of Development Assistance and Regional Cooperation in the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development – Government of Uganda. Her roles focus on climate finance mobilization including the gender technical requirements in climate finance engagements. 

She has over 10 years’ experience following UNFCCC Negotiations as part of the Government of Uganda Delegation and additionally is one of the Finance Coordinators of Least Develop Countries (LDCs) in the UNFCCC process. 

Serves as a Member of the National Climate Change Advisory Committee of the Government of Uganda in addition to several other Boards of Institutions. 

She is dedicated to a Gender -Responsive Climate Finance Agenda.

Dr. Ali Waqas Malik currently serves as Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of Pakistan in Seoul, Republic of Korea. As a career diplomat, he has held several key positions within Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and diplomatic missions abroad, including postings in Berlin, Germany from 2014–2015 and 2016–2019.

Dr. Malik is Pakistan’s climate finance negotiator under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement, a role he has held since 2017. He has served as Adviser to Pakistan’s Board Member to the Green Climate Fund since 2019, and is currently a member of the UNFCCC Standing Committee on Finance. He was previously a member of the Adaptation Fund Board and also served on the Transitional Committee for the operationalization of the Loss and Damage Fund.

With a strong background in multilateral climate diplomacy, Dr. Malik also served as Director (Climate Change) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pakistan. His expertise spans multilateral climate negotiations including climate finance.

Born in 1986, Dr. Malik joined the Civil Services of Pakistan in 2010.

Ms. Apollonia Miola is principal advisor on international climate finance at DG CLIMA,  European Commission.  Negotiator and senior policy expert specializing in climate change, international economics, and sustainable development.

With over 20 years of leadership at the Joint Research Centre (JRC), Apollonia directed innovative scientific programmes  on the economics of climate change and development. She pioneered complex analyses on economics of climate change, energy economics, ecological economics.

Apollonia’s international experience is enriched by her tenure as Senior Policy Analyst at the OECD, where she advised on governance reforms and aligned recovery plans with SDGs and the Paris Agreement. As visiting scientist she also collaborated with the World Bank on climate change economics and disaster risk management.

A frontrunner in complex economic analysis related to climate change and energy economics and ecological economics, Apollonia has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals.

Ms. Karima Oustadi is climate finance and transparency expert in the Directorate General of European and International Affairs of the Italian Ministry of Environment and Energy Security. Climate finance negotiator in the UNFCCC process since 2017, she entered the Ministry as environmental economist.

She serves as Alternate Board Member of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, and as Vice-chair of the subsidiary body of the OECD Development Assistance Committee EnviroNet (environment and development cooperation).

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Ms. Hendrikje Reich heads the International Climate Finance Division at the German Federal Foreign Office.

She is the lead on climate finance for the German delegation to the UNFCCC and a member of the EU negotiation team, where she also leads the EU’s work on the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). She joined the Standing Committee on Finance in 2024.

Hendrikje has been heavily invested in bringing contributors of climate finance together to ensure joint delivery of collective finance goals.

She deeply believes in bringing people together from different backgrounds will help us to find the solutions.

Hendrikje was involved in setting up the International Climate Finance Initiative (IKI) as well as the NAMA Facility. She also worked on a federal support programme for local communities in Germany.

She graduated in political science, economics and human geography.

Ms. Ekaterina Vasilenko is the Chief Economist at the Climate Risks Unit, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. Her area of expertise is related to climate risks assessment and management, sustainable finance, and climate and environmental strategies for financial institutions and corporates. 

Since 2024 she has been a member of financial team of the Russian delegation at the UNFCCC negotiations. Ekaterina also take part in negotiations on climate finance issues at G20 (the Sustainable Finance Working Group (SFWG) and the Task Force on a Global Mobilization against Climate Change (TF-CLIMA) in the Brazilian Presidency of G20) and BRICS.

Before joining the Central Bank, Ekaterina worked in a private banking sector and the World Bank on issues related to Russia’s climate policy, carbon markets, and blue economy. In addition, she has years of experience in Environmental Impact Assessment for marine infrastructure. 

Ekaterina earned a M.S. in Environmental Sciences and Policy from the Central European University in Vienna. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Ecology and Natural Resource Management from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University) with specialization in climate policy, multilateral environmental diplomacy, and international law.

Ms. Clara Schultz currently serves at the Swedish Ministry of Finance, where she works on international climate finance. Clara is a climate finance negotiator and a member of the Swedish delegation to the UNFCCC, as well as a representative on the UNFCCC Standing Committee on Finance.

She also serves as Sweden’s deputy in the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action (CFMCA), where she co-leads the Coalition’s work on carbon pricing. In addition, Clara has an advisory role in Sweden’s collaboration with international financial institutions, including multilateral development banks.

Her previous experience includes work on sustainable finance frameworks and carbon taxation at the national and EU levels within the Ministry. She also has a background in economics consulting in the fields of energy and climate, as well as in asset management. She holds degrees in economics from the Stockholm School of Economics and the University of St. Gallen.

Ms. Gabriela Blatter is the Principal Policy Advisor for Climate Finance and Head of the International Environment Finance Unit at the Federal Office for Environment in Switzerland.

Since 2013 she has been the Swiss lead negotiator and EIG coordinator for climate finance and since 2019 she is a member of the Standing Committee on Finance.

Being a chemist by training, Gabriela appreciates a scientific approach to climate finance and works on financial incentive structures domestically and internationally to drive the transition to a low-emission and climate resilient development future.