Maruxa Cardama

Passionate about social, economic and environmental justice for human development, Maruxa specialises in integrated urban and territorial development. Over the past 18 years, Maruxa has worked with multilateral institutions, national and sub-national governments, NGOs and philanthropy in more than 30 countries across continents to develop public policies, capacity projects, and multi-stakeholder partnerships.

Maruxa currently serves as Secretary General of the SLOCAT Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport. In 2019 she was selected by the UN Department of Global Communications as Chair of the 68th UN Civil Society Conference. Previously Maruxa founded Communitas, the multi-stakeholder coalition which pioneered knowledge-based advocacy for the Sustainable Development Goal on Cities and Human Settlements. Maruxa also served as Secretary General of the Network of Regional Governments for Sustainable Development (nrg4SD), and during her tenure co-facilitated the engagement of local and regional governments in the UN Rio +20 Conference. She has also held posts as Senior Policy Specialist in Cities Alliance-UNOPS; as well as in local and regional government in the UK and Spain. In 2004-2010, she was Deputy Director of the Representation of the South West of England to the EU, where she led on the sustainability portfolio for a partnership of regional authorities, academia and the private sector.

Prolific public speaker and analyst, in recent years Maruxa has taken part in the Future Earth community; served in the UCL-Nature Sustainability Expert Panel on the Urban Science-Policy Interface; and advised the Conference of European Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe (CPMR) on Global Agendas. Her formal training was as a lawyer, as well as in EU law and in development economics.