The GWP Steering Committee is equivalent to a Board of Directors, overseeing all GWPO and network operations and reviewing annual reports for final approval by the Sponsoring Partners.
The Committee meets formally twice per year, with additional meetings called as needed. The Committee also appoints the GWPO Executive Secretary and CEO, who leads GWP’s strategic development and oversees operations. The Executive Secretary & CEO is a non-voting member of the Steering Committee and reports to the Steering Committee Chair.
Quick shortcuts to member surnames:
Bereciartua, Astorga, Bakurin, Bynoe, Cárdenas Sosa, Ilagan, Majdalani, Moripe, Ramsundersingh, Sym, Tornesi, Werneck, and Xu.
Find out who are on the GWP Nomination Committee.
Steering Committee Members
Pablo Bereciartua, Chair, Argentina
Mr. Bereciartua is Chair of the Global Water Partnership.
He is the Minister of Infrastructure of the City of Buenos Aires.
Mr. Bereciartua is the former Secretary of Infrastructure and Water of Argentina (2017 - 2019) responsible for one of the main federal investment areas (water supply and sanitation, adaptation to climate change, expansion of the agricultural frontier and large scale infrastructure including dams and aqueducts) and the definition and implementation of the National Water Policies. He was also Undersecretary of Water Resources of Argentina (2015 - 2017); President of the Water Planning Agency of the Buenos Aires metropolitan area (2015 - 2019), in charge of defining the water supply and sanitation service for 14 million people; and Director of Infrastructure of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires (2007 - 2009). He is the current President of the Argentine Engineering Center.
Mr. Bereciartua is also a Professor at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and former Dean at the Buenos Aires Institute of Technology (ITBA). He is a member of the Advisory Board of the EIT Climate KIC and a member of the Steering Committee at the International Symposium on Next Generation Infrastructures (ISNGI). He has graduated with honors from Universidad Nacional de la Plata, Argentina and holds graduate degrees from University of California at Berkeley in California, USA, the UNESCO-IHE Institute in Delft, The Netherlands and the Universidad de San Andres (MBA) in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Nchedi Sophia Maphokga-Moripe, Vice Chair, South Africa
Ms. Nchedi Sophia Maphokga-Moripe is the Chief Director, Executive, Strategic Partnerships, of the Department of Water and Sanitation of South Africa. She has 39 years of experience in different responsibilities and at various levels. She is a member of the International Advisory Committee of the UN Water Action Decade 2018-2028; board member GWP Southern Africa; negotiator for the G20 Water Platform; South Africa's Sherpa for the High Level Panel on Water; SCM Water and Politics; Stockholm WWW; UN Women Major on CSW. She is experienced in intersectoral engagements for water, energy, and mining.
Her awards include Leader Public Service, Women’s Sector Groups, Best Special Programmes Coordinator, Best Public Service Employee of the Year.
Yamileth Astorga Espeleta, Costa Rica
M.Sc. Yamileth Astorga Espelta is the Executive President of the Costa Rican Institute of Aqueducts and Sewers (AyA) in two Government administrations (2014-2020). The AyA is the public institution with technical governance of all entities that operate water supply and wastewater sanitation (WSS) services in Costa Rica and at the same time the AyA is the operator of the WSS with a coverage that covers 50% of the population.
Ms. Astorga is a professor at the University of Costa Rica. She has worked as an academic and researcher at public universities: University of Costa Rica (UCR) 17 years, National University (UNA) 8 years, State Distance University (UNED) 15 years and Tropical Agronomic Center for Research and Teaching (CATIE) 9 years.
Astorga is a national and international consultant for organisations such as: Central American Commission for Environment and Development (CCAD), Global Water Partnership of Central America (GWP), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), World Bank, European Union, GIZ, ECLAC-Mexico and Fair-Trade Labeling Organization.
Ndey Sireng J Bakurin, The Gambia
Ms. Bakurin is a career Environmental Management and Sustainable Development Expert. Currently the Executive Director of The Association of NGOs (TANGO) in The Gambia and a former Executive Director of the Gambia National Environment Agency. Mrs. Bakurin is the Chairperson of the GWP Country Water Partnership (CWP) in Gambia and a previous member of the Steering Committee of the GWP West Africa. Her educational background includes MSc and BSc degrees in Environmental Studies and Environmental Education coupled with a post graduate higher diploma in international and development studies.
She has more than 26 years of accumulated professional work experience in environmental and natural resources management including policy and management, gender, education, sustainable development, impact assessment, creative stakeholder engagement, monitoring &evaluation, capacity, and network building.
Professor Paulette Bynoe, Guyana
Prof. Bynoe is a Senior Lecturer and current Deputy Dean of the School of Graduate Studies at the University of Guyana. She has a Ph.D. in Geography, a M.Phil. in Environmental Education, a B.A. in Geography, and formal training certificates in Climate Change, Environmental Management, and Community Disaster Risk Management. Her research interests are environmental education, natural resources and environmental policy, sustainable livelihoods, climate change, and disaster vulnerability.
Prof. Bynoe is the recipient of the Golden Arrow of Achievement for research that contribute to policy making, and for environmental education and training.
Angel Cárdenas Sosa, Venezuela
Angel Cárdenas Sosa is the General Manager for CAF’s Water Security Agenda and also the Urban/Subnational development and creative economies agendas of the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF). He is responsible for a USD 7 billion investment portfolio (sovereign and non-sovereign) as well as USD 25+ million portfolio of non-reimbursable technical cooperation projects.
Mr. Cárdenas is an economist with Master’s degrees in Public Management, Territorial Planning and Environmental Management, as well as Business Administration. He is currently a Ph. D. candidate in Political Science. Mr. Cárdenas has more than 20 years’ experience in multilateral banking and international development. At CAF, he has served previously as Acting General Secretary, Acting General Auditor, Director of Infrastructure and Energy projects, among others. He has also lectured at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels at universities in Argentina, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Christopher A. Ilagan, Philippines
Mr. Christopher A. Ilagan, Corporate Affairs Head – Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and North Asia at Pepsico, previously Corporate Affairs Director at Cargill Philippines, also covering the Taiwan and Hong Kong markets. Over the years, Chris has built his expertise in the government and regulatory affairs space working across a number of companies, including 3M, Manila Water Company, and International Container Terminal Services.
Chris maintains a personal advocacy on water sustainability and governance. He is Chairperson of the GWP Philippine Water Partnership and remains an active voice in the water sector pushing for water governance reforms guided by the principles of Integrated Water Resources Management.
Chris holds a Masters in Political Economy with specialization in International Relations and Development from the University of Asia and the Pacific, where he also received his Bachelor of Arts in Humanities.
Ms. Majdalani has joined the International Center on Agriculture Research in Drylands (ICARDA) in January 2022 as a Senior Climate Advisor, supporting ICARDA to align its programs on food systems transformation with the Climate Agenda and sustainable development. Prior to that, she has served as the Director of the Arab Center for Climate Change Policies and Cluster Leader of Natural Resource Sustainability at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN-ESCWA). She has extensive experience in integrated management of natural resources (water, energy and food security), working with public and private sector institutions, and supporting inter-governmental collaboration to achieve region-specific development goals.
Atem S. Ramsundersingh, Singapore
Mr. Ramsundersingh is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Board Director of WEnergy Global Pte Ltd based in Singapore. The company is a one-stop provider of renewable energy solutions (i.e. solar, tidal, wind, hydro and bio-systems and smart power distribution systems, including energy storage systems), currently recognised as one of the major quality providers of hybrid powered microgrids.
Mr. Ramsundersingh brings in over 30 years of extensive international experience and knowledge about project and new business development in emerging economies with complex decision-making and investment environments. He also brings in his extensive knowledge and experience in industrial manufacturing processes, supply chain and quality management, utility management, strategic management of operations, investment portfolio management, deal structuring and commercialization of businesses. He has a vast network of contacts in over 70 countries, including several Multilateral Agencies in the area of industry, energy, water and development finance.
Mr. Ramsundersingh is a former Senior Manager with The World Bank Group (Washington DC, USA) and a Program Director with the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water and Environment (Delft, The Netherlands). He obtained a Masters’ Degree in Infrastructure Engineering at Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands and has been trained at the Harvard Business School in Corporate Renewal and Change Management and Cambridge University in Sustainable Industrial Leadership.
As Chief Executive, Adrian Sym leads the pioneering work of the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS). Since joining AWS in 2011, Adrian has overseen the development of AWS into a truly global network that inspires the leadership across different groups that is needed to safeguard our freshwater resources.
Adrian has extensive international experience ranging from Fairtrade International in Germany to grassroots NGOs in Nepal and Bangladesh.
His diverse experience, together with his academic background (Masters in International Policy and Diplomacy), has helped to shape Adrian’s view that addressing key global challenges requires fresh leadership from all stakeholder groups.
Carolina Tornesi MacKinnon, USA
Carolina is an Argentine and USA young water professional and advocate based in San Francisco, California with a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University. Her passion for achieving SDG6 led her to become the World Youth Parliament for Water president in 2021. In her first year of presidency she was awarded the World Youth Forum Honoree award (2022) for being an influential youth. She has spoken and participated in multiple international events (i.e. UN Water Conference 2023, Stockholm World Water Week, etc.) and was co-chair of World Water Day 2023. Carolina is also a business analyst at Brown & Caldwell, an environmental engineering firm, on their digital water team. Prior to that, Carolina had been working at Xylem (a water technology company) since 2019, holding three different roles within the Engineering Leadership Development Program and her final role was as a Sr. Product Management Analyst. She believes in making positive change in the water arena through purposeful inclusion of underrepresented voices and ideas, especially youth.
Jorge Werneck Lima, Brazil
Mr. Werneck is a senior researcher on Hydrology and IWRM at the Brazilian Corporation for Agricultural Research - Embrapa, since 2001. He is the former Director of the Regulatory Agency for Water, Energy, and Sanitation of the Federal District – Adasa/Brazil (2017-2022), and he is the current Deputy Superintendent of Plans, Programs and Projects at the National Water and Sanitation Agency – ANA/Brazil. He is an Agricultural Engineer with master’s degree in Agronomy (Irrigation and Hydrology) and PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering (Water Resources and Environmental Technologies), always working with water monitoring, modeling and managing.
Mr. Werneck has a background on research, planning, management, and regulation of the Water and Sanitation sectors. He has an expressive scientific production on that fields, with more than 2,400 citations registered on google scholar. He was the vice-president of the Brazilian Association of Water Resources – ABRHidro (2017-2018), and of the Brazilian Association of Regulatory Agencies – ABAR (2019-2020). He acted as vice-chair of the Thematic Commission of the 8th World Water Forum (2016-2018) and, after that, he was Governor (2018-2022) and Bureau Member of the World Water Council - WWC (2020-2022), actively participating in commissions, task forces and preparation processes of the 9th Forum.
Ms. Xu is Deputy Director General of International Economic and Technical Cooperation and Exchange Center, Ministry of Water Resources, P. R. China, and responsible for international water cooperation, policy study, capacity building, international communication and international standards. She holds a Bachelor degree of English Literature from Beijing Foreign Studies University and a Master degree of Public Policy (specializing in Environmental Policy )from the Australian National University.
Ms. Xu joined the Ministry of Water Resources, P. R. China since 2004. Prior to her current position, she worked for the Department of International Cooperation, Science and Technology, and the Water Resources Protection Bureau of the Yellow River Conservancy Commission.
Financing Partners Group representative (rotation, currently Maria Vink/SIDA)
Programme Subcommittee
Atem Ramsundersingh – Chair
Jorge Werneck Lima – Steering Committee member
Nchedi Moripe – Steering Committee member
Abdoulaye Sene – Chair of Regional Chairs
Jae So – Chair of Technical Committee
Yamileth Astorga - Steering Committee member
Audit & Finance Subcommittee
Angel Cárdenas Sosa - Chair
Nday Bakurin – Steering Committee member
Jorge Werneck Lima - Steering Committee member
Abdoulaye Sene – Chair of Regional Chairs
Jae So – Chair of Technical Committee
Carolina Tornesi MacKinnon - Steering Committee member
Angel Cárdenas - Steering Committee member
HR Subcommittee
Christopher Illagan – Chair
Paulette Bynoe – Steering Committee member
Roula Majdalani - Steering Committee member
Adrian Sym - Steering Committee member
Jing Xu - Steering Committee member
Ex Officio Members
Chair of GWP Regional Chairs
GWP Executive Secretary & CEO
GWP Technical Committee Chair
UN-Water Representative
Permanent Observers
United Nations Development Programme
The Nomination Committee
Link to the Nomination Committee.