UN-ECLAC-NTA

Simone Cecchini

Simone Cecchini is Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Demographic Center (CELADE) - Population Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), based in Santiago, Chile. At CELADE, he leads a team of professionals whose objective is to strengthen the capacity of the countries of the region to analyze demographic dynamics and their interrelations with sustainable development, in order to incorporate population factors into public policies. He has extensive experience in the study of social protection policies and programs, poverty and inequality reduction, topics on which he has published and advised various governments in the region, and is an expert in social indicators. He worked for several years in the Poverty Reduction Department of the World Bank (Poverty Group). A cum laude graduate in political science from the University of Florence, with a thesis in demography on the 1991 Italian population census, Simone Cecchini holds a master’s degree in international economics from George Washington University and an MBA from the Catholic University of Chile.

Zulma Sosa is Coordinator of the Population and Development Area at CELADE - Population Division of ECLAC. She provides substantive support on population issues to ECLAC's intergovernmental bodies, and offers technical assistance to countries on population and development issues. She holds a degree in mathematics and statistics from the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences (FACEN) of the National University of Asuncion (UNA). She holds a master's degree in statistics from the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona and the UNA, Paraguay, and a postgraduate degree in population and development from the University of Chile and CELADE-Population Division of ECLAC. She was Director General of the National Institute of Statistics of Paraguay for ten years. With more than 30 years of experience in the fields of production, analysis and use of statistical and demographic information in planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of public policies.

Raul Holz

Raúl Holz is a senior researcher at the Population and Development Area of CELADE - Population Division of ECLAC, with over twenty years of work experience in public policy analysis and management at both international and national levels. His expertise spans the 2030 Agenda and a human rights‑based approach to development—particularly economic and social rights—alongside equality and gender mainstreaming, qualitative and quantitative research, and in‑depth knowledge of poverty reduction, closing inequality gaps, social protection and social policies, as well as food systems and trade. He holds a degree in Economics (University of Chile), a PhD in Political Economy (University of Sydney), an MA in Development Economics (University of Sussex), and an MA in Sociology (University of Chile).