Tuesday 1 July: Auditing Our Blue Planet

Karl Cilia, Chief Executive Officer, Water Services Corporation (WSC)

As the Chief Executive Officer of the Water Services Corporation (WSC), Mr. Karl Cilia has proven his exceptional prowess in the areas of informatics, technology, and management. His extensive experience spanning both private and public sectors, including an esteemed tenure at the multinational IBM, specializing in the Utilities industry, has been pivotal to his role at the WSC, including the execution of the smart metering system within WSC and Enemalta.

Before joining WSC, Mr. Cilia was the driving force behind Enemalta as its Executive Director, overseeing an array of crucial activities and initiatives. In his current role at the helm of WSC, Mr. Cilia has continued his legacy of success and is leading the organization in achieving its mission and objectives. His expertise, experience, and dedication have been key in steering the organization towards new milestones.

A noteworthy endeavor in recent months under Mr. Cilia's stewardship is the issuance of Malta’s first-ever Green Bonds via WSC Group. This pioneering move has positioned WSC among the world's first utility companies to issue such bonds. It not only underscores Mr. Cilia's innovative spirit and foresight but also reaffirms his commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility. As WSC moves forward, Mr. Cilia's vision will undoubtedly keep it at the cutting edge of innovation and excellence.

Karina von Schuckmann, Senior Advisor, Mercator Ocean International

Karina von Schuckmann (Dr., HDR) is Senior Advisor, Ocean Science for Policy, at Mercator Ocean International in France. Passionate about the ocean, she is interested in understanding the role of the ocean - and its interactions - in the Earth's climate system, its changes and the underlying processes involved. She is, amongst others, the director of the Copernicus Ocean State Report and was the lead author of the IPCC SROCC and AR6 reports (Working Group I); she is an author for the WMO State of the Climate and the IOC-UNESCO Ocean Report. She is a member of several international expert groups on climate science. She is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and she received in 2023 the French Academy of Sciences Climate Prize.

Robin Degron, Director of Plan Bleu, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)/Mediterranean Action Plan

Habilitated to supervise PhD in Geography and Senior auditor of the French Supreme Audit Institution (Cour des comptes), Dr. Robin Degron is currently director of Plan Bleu (UNEP/Mediterranean Action Plan) and specialist in Sustainable development, landscape planning and green finance. He wrote several books and many papers on these items.

Xavier Leflaive, Senior Advisor, OECD

Xavier Leflaive is a senior advisor for water at the OECD Environment Directorate. The former lead of the water team for 12 years, he coordinated the Recommendation of the OECD Council on water, which captures OECD guidance on the management of water quantity and quality, water-related risks, water governance and finance. More recently, he supported the Global Commissison on the Economics of Water.

Leflaive sits on the Board of Eau de Paris, the water supplier for the city of Paris, and on the Internatinal Advisory Board of Deltares, a Dutch knowledge institute that works on water and subsurface.

Leflaive studied business administration and social sciences in France, Canada and the UK. He holds a Ph.D. in social and poitical sciences from the University of Cambridge (UK).

President Tarja Halonen

Tarja Halonen served as the 11th President of the Republic of Finland from 2000 to 2012. She was Finland’s first female president. Her political career in Finland spans over four decades. She was elected to Parliament in 1979. She held the office of Minister of Social Affairs and Health, Minister of Justice, and Minister for Foreign Affairs. During her Presidency, she served as co-chair of the United Nations Millennium Summit and co-chair of the UN High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability.

During her career, President Halonen has paid close attention to issues of human rights, democracy, civil society, gender equality and sustainable development. Among other duties, president Halonen is currently a member of UN’s Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation and UNCCD Land Ambassador. 

Halonen is well known for her long and extensive experience in the civil society and her interest in human rights issues, especially regarding women’s rights, democracy and sustainable development. She continues to be active in the field of social rights and on the UN Agenda 2030. Among other duties, President Halonen is currently a member of UN’s Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation and UNCCD Land Ambassador.  

Animesh Kumar, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)

Animesh Kumar is the Head of UNDRR Office in Bonn and leads UNDRR’s global portfolio on climate action and comprehensive risk management, disaster data, and monitoring of the Sendai Framework, related SDGs and Early Warnings for All.

Before joining this position in 2021, Animesh served as the Deputy Head of the UNDRR Regional Offices in Africa and in Asia-Pacific during 2013-2021. In these capacities, he led regional policy and coordination on disaster risk reduction, including inter-governmental and stakeholder mechanisms, and joint UN efforts on building resilience.

In his previous positions, Animesh worked in other UN entities in Africa and Asia, working on disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and food security, including as the policy adviser to the Government of Ethiopia.

Animesh is a Geographer and holds an MPhil and PhD in climate change adaptation and sustainability. 

Daisy Mukarakate, Climate Change Strategies and Policy team, UNDP Regional Service Centre for Africa

Daisy Mukarakate is a Regional Climate Policy Advisor in the Climate Change Strategies and Policy team of the UNDP Regional Service Centre for Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She is the Africa Regional Focal Point for the UNDP Climate Promise Initiative. The initiative supports over 120 countries globally to take bold action to reduce their emissions, increase their resilience to climate impacts and support sustainable development priorities.

Daisy has over 30 years of experience in international development. For the past 23 years she has worked in various capacities in UNDP, at field and regional levels, providing policy, programmatic and technical support to countries in the areas of climate change, energy, environment, disaster risk reduction  and  early recovery and sustainable community livelihoods.  

Simon Upton, Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, New Zealand 

Simon Upton was sworn in as Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment for a five-year term on 16 October 2017 and as reappointed for a second term in 2022.

Mr Upton is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and a Rhodes Scholar, with degrees in English literature, music and law from the University of Auckland, and an MLitt in political philosophy from Oxford University. He was sworn in as a member of the Privy Council in 1999. A Member of Parliament between 1981 and 2000, Mr Upton held a variety of ministerial portfolios including environment, research, biosecurity, health and state services between 1990 and 1999. 

After leaving Parliament, Mr Upton moved to Paris to chair the Round Table on Sustainable Development at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).  In 2005, he returned to New Zealand to pursue a number of private sector roles while continuing to chair the Round Table. He returned to the OECD as Environment Director in 2010 and led the OECD’s contribution to the 2015 Paris Climate Accord. 

He returned to take up the role of Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in 2017. As Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Mr Upton provides the New Zealand House of Representatives with independent commentary on environmental legislation, policies and agencies. He has delivered major reports on biogenic greenhouse gas emissions and forestry offsets, environmental information and expenditure, the fate of chemical contaminants in the environment and the environmental impact of tourism amongst others. He leads a multi-disciplinary team of analysts in Wellington. His office’s work programme and publications can be explored here.  

Wednesday 2 July: Parallel sessions

Farooq Ullah, International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)

Farooq Ullah is a Senior Policy Advisor and Lead, Energy and Climate Governance in IISD’s Energy Program. His work is cross-cutting, focusing on strategy and advocacy to advance oil and gas phase-out and environmentally harmful subsidy reform.

He has over 20 years of sustainable development policy and governance experience at international, national, and local levels. Before joining IISD, Farooq was a Strategist at The B Team. He has also worked at Stakeholder Forum, the UK Sustainable Development Commission, Transport for London, and as a consultant.

Farooq has a master’s degree in public policy from the London School of Economics and a bachelor’s degree in operations management from the University of Alberta. Farooq is a Pakistani-Canadian who lives in London, United Kingdom.

Khalid Hamid, International Director, CIPFA

Khalid Hamid has over 30 years’ experience in public audit, having held leadership positions in the UK, South Africa and the UAE. 
 
Throughout his career, he has been involved in an array of projects, including standard setting and capacity development, across the supreme audit institution community. Khalid has also been a member of several influential committees, including chairing the Financial Audit and Accounting Subcommittee of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI). He is currently a member of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) Professional Accountancy Organization Development & Advisory Group (PAODAG).

Over the past five years, he has served as the International Director at the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), growing the institute’s global footprint, with a particular focus on integrating CIPFA’s offering for financial managers, accountants, auditors and other public finance professionals

Steve Watkins, Head of International Markets, CIPFA

Steve has over fifteen years of experience working in marketing and business development and has spent the last eleven years working within Professional Institutions and Associations, specializing in education, membership and training solutions. He has won numerous MemCom industry awards including Best Integrated Membership Campaign, Best Student Engagement Initiative as well as being a speaker at a previous MemberWise conference. 
 
Over the past five years at CIPFA Steve is responsible for all international activities that link directly with key stakeholders, including large donors, government departments, regional public finance entities and universities and training institutions. He is accountable for the international contribution to three organisational strategic goals of Membership and Engagement, Education and Training and Policy and Brand. 

Angela Kariuki, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Angela Kariuki is a Legal Officer in the Law Division of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and currently serves as the interim team lead of the InforMEA Initiative. Before assuming her current role, Angela was an Intergovernmental Affairs Officer in UNEP’s New York Office, where she supported UNEP’s engagement in key intergovernmental processes, including preparations for the Summit of the Future, and provided technical secretariat support to the Secretary-General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals. Prior to her assignment in New York, she served as a Programme Management Officer (Legal) within the Frontiers in Environmental Law Unit in UNEP’s Law Division. In that role, she focused on advancing UNEP’s work on Environmental Human Rights Defenders and supporting the implementation of United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) resolutions related to minerals and environmental governance. Before joining the United Nations, Angela worked in her home country in various roles, including at the South African Human Rights Commission, where she focused on the rights of mining-affected communities and the progressive realization of the right to a healthy environment.

Thursday 3 July: INTOSAI WGEA Business Meeting

Andrea Hinwood, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Dr. Andrea Hinwood serves as the Chief Scientist of UNEP. She is an environmental scientist with expertise in environmental exposures and impacts on human health. Dr. Hinwood (B.Sc., M.AppSc., PhD) earned a PhD in environmental epidemiology from the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Prior to this role, Andrea worked on a range of local, regional, and international environmental issues, having served as a member of the TEAP and co-chair of the Technical Options Committee for Aerosols Sterilants and miscellaneous uses supporting the Montreal Protocol. She served as the first Chief Environmental Scientist at the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) in Victoria, Australia and was previously an Associate Professor at Edith Cowan University and held appointments as a member and Deputy Chair of the Environmental Protection Authority of Western Australia. Dr Hinwood was a sessional member of the State Administrative Tribunal of Western Australia, and her career has included the provision of strategic advice to the governments on a wide variety of environmental matters