Annette Wallgren is the UN-REDD Asia Pacific Regional Coordinator at UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Asia Pacific. Within the FAO and UNDP partnership, UNEP supports countries in the region to ensure safeguards are in place and to access REDD+ finance to reduce forest emissions and enhance forest carbon stocks. Before taking on this role in UN-REDD, Annette joined UNEP in 2016 as the first full time gender expert and on behalf of UNEP she led the development and approval of the unique stand-alone inter-agency EmPower project on gender, renewable energy and climate change. As part of institutionalizing gender equality within UNEP, Annette has been interviewed in the Routledge book Negotiating Gender Expertise in Environment and Development. In 2020 she was named by Business Insider as one of the 10 leaders transforming energy in Asia and in 2021, recognized on the list of 100 most influential people in gender policy by Apolitical.
Prior to joining UNEP, Annette worked in crisis management for the Government of Sweden, women's political and economic participation in peacebuilding at UN Women in Kosovo, as a research assistant at PeaceWomen at the UN Headquarters in New York and with various NGOs in India and South Africa on women’s rights and disaster risk reduction programmes. She has also conducted research in Ethiopia examining gender roles in times of a refugee crisis. Annette holds a Master’s in Politics and International Studies from Uppsala University specializing in Peace and Conflict.
