Ms. Yunae Yi currently serves as the Safeguard Advisor at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and leads the formulation and implementation of the UNEP's Environmental, Social, and Economic Sustainability Framework. Her application of social science knowledge in environmental work enables her to bring an integrated perspective of issues from a broad environmental, social, economic, and human rights context.
She has a Ph.D. in applied Microeconomics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. She was a researcher in socio-economic policies, especially labour, poverty, and gender. She published several research articles on these issues with policy implications for welfare policies and the labor market.
She was a Research Associate at Columbia University and a fellowship awardee from the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) of New York prior to joining the UN. She worked in the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the UN Secretariat (the Department of Public Information and the Department of Management) before joining the UNEP in Nairobi, Kenya. She also has expertise in Results-Based Management, strategic planning, quality assurance and performance monitoring.
