Luciana Mermet

Manager of the Global Fund Partnership and Health Systems Team

Luciana is a seasoned manager with two decades of experience in developing countries and international organizations, she currently leads UNDP’s partnership with the Global Fund, a $1.5 billion grant portfolio across +20 countries providing support in challenging operating environments to promote greater equity, save lives, and ensure the right to health by accelerating the fight to combat AIDS, TB and malaria epidemics, while strengthening national health systems.
Previously, she led the UNDP Bolivia office as Resident Representative (2019-2023) where she brokered strategic electoral assistance as part of the UN’s peacebuilding efforts in response to the political crisis in 2019 and 2020. In this role, she revamped the country office engagement with stakeholders through a novel development and innovation portfolio, focusing on sustainable development policies and nature-based solutions. 
 

She served as Deputy Resident Representative for UNDP in the Dominican Republic (2014-2019), where she led the mainstreaming of the Agenda 2030 into national development planning. Previously, she was advisor on poverty reduction and international trade policies with UNDP, with focus on capacity building programmes for Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States, with strong field experience in Asian and African countries. 
Before joining UNDP, she served as trade officer in the Ministry of Economy and Production of Argentina with leadership in multilateral and regional trade negotiations on non-agricultural products, trade rules, dispute settlement, South-South cooperation, and multilateral environmental agreements. She was a researcher at ECLAC’s Economic Division in Chile,focusing on fiscal and trade policies. 
 

She holds two master's degrees in Public Policy (Georgetown University) and International 
Development (New York University).