Florence Raes Acting Regional Director, UN Women West and Central Africa

Ms. Florence Anne Raes - previously UN Women Deputy Regional Director for West and Central Africa since August 2020 - is currently serving as the office's Acting Regional Director.

Before joining the WCA Regional Office in Dakar, Ms. Raes served as Representative for UN Women in Argentina where she set up the country office, successfully leading the negotiations with the host government, stakeholders and partners, including a large programme on Women and Sports with the International Olympic Committee.

Between 2012 and 2019, Florence was the UN Women Representative in Paraguay and in Mozambique where she expanded the organisation’s portfolios and partnerships, strengthened the institution’s coordination mandate and led normative achievements such as the adoption of gender sensitive economic policy frameworks. Her prior experience as team leader and senior programme manager with UN Women and with the European Union in North Africa, in the Middle-East, in Brazil and the Southern Cone regions, focused on gender equality, governance and legal reforms, macroeconomics and gender responsive budgeting as well as rural, indigenous and positive women’s empowerment.

Ms. Raes coordinated international research programmes for Oxfam International, the Institute of Development Studies and the Ford Foundation and provided technical advisory services to the EU and the UN Women worldswide. At the onset of her career, she was Associate Researcher in political sciences at the University of Brussels. Florence holds a Masters in International Relations from the University of Brussels and a Masters in Latin American Studies from the University of London. She is fluent in French, Dutch, English, Portuguese and Spanish.