Isabelle has extensive experience with the negotiation, formulation, and implementation of technical assistance projects primarily GEF funded, and has worked with multiple partners. These include partners from the GEF agencies, other UN Agencies, regional basin organizations, NGOs, government agencies, local governments and academia to foster multi-country transboundary water cooperation and the collective management of marine and freshwater transboundary water systems supporting policy, legal and institutional reforms.
As International Waters Task Manager within UNEP, she has worked in more than 35 countries across Asia, the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean on transboundary water body-based projects and also on a series of global International Waters projects, focusing on key emerging issues such as blue forests valuation, carbon accounting, systemic transboundary assessments as well as normative and global partnership projects including nutrient management, interactions with the agri-business sector, testing innovative financial mechanisms for wastewater management and advancing digital transformation with open data platform for greater integration of data into marine policy making.
Through the years, she has also worked to bridge focal areas in a ridge-to-reef/Source to Sea context, blend climate change adaptation measures within Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), promote resource efficiency, nature-based solutions and nature-based Blue Economy opportunities and more recently conservation finance through innovative financing mechanisms.
Isabelle loves to think out of the box and use her creativity to generate the next generation of projects. She holds a Master of Science in Hydrology from the University of Louvain in Belgium.
