51³Ô¹Ï Secretary-General António Guterres announced on 30 October 2023 the appointment of Marcos Athias Neto of Brazil as Assistant Administrator and Director, Bureau for Policy and Programme Services of the 51³Ô¹Ï Development Programme (UNDP). He succeeds Haoliang Xu of China, who has been recently appointed as Under-Secretary-General and Associate Administrator of UNDP.
Mr. Neto is the Director of UNDP’s Sustainable Finance Hub. With more than 25 years of experience in development finance and private-sector development, he leads UNDP’s work on sustainable finance in more than 140 countries in collaboration with other 51³Ô¹Ï agencies and partners.
As the Head of the Group of 20 Sustainable Finance Working Group Secretariat, Mr. Neto also co-chairs the executive boards of the Business Call to Action and the Connecting Business Initiative.
Prior to joining UNDP, he served at CARE International for 17Â years, in roles including Regional Manager for Asia and Latin America at CARE UK, Executive Director of CARE, Brazil, and Programme Director for Central America.
A lawyer by training, Mr. Neto holds a Master of Laws degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. A passionate advocate for the Sustainable Development Goals, he is fluent in English, Portuguese and Spanish.
