As the UN Resident Coordinator heading a UN Multi-Country Office that serves the Cook Islands, Niue Samoa, and Tokelau, Ms Simona Marinescu leads a UN Country Team of 15 UN agencies, some with a physical presence in Samoa and others operating from MCO Fiji.
Ms Marinescu has over 20 years of experience in international development coordination, economic diversification, and green growth, humanitarian and sustainable human development. She has held various positions, including those of Chief Development Impact at UNDP Headquarters in New York; first Director of the UNDP International Centre for Private Sector in Development in Istanbul, Turkey; and Senior Economist, Programme Director for Economic Reforms in Baghdad, Iraq.
She also held the position of UNDP Resident Representative to the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa, and Tokelau before the delinking of the joint functions of the UNDP Resident Representative and the UN Resident Coordinator in 2019.
Simona Marinescu as the UN Resident Coordinator is also the Representative of the UN Secretary-General to the Cook Islands, Niue Samoa and Tokelau.