Ivonne Higuero

Ivonne Higuero has been the Secretary General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) since 2018.

Professional career
Ivonne Higuero is the current Secretary General of the United Nations’ Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

She is a national of Panama and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from the University of Missouri (United States of America) and a Masters’ of Environmental Management Degree in Natural Resource Economics and Policy from Duke University (United States of America).

In 2018, Ms. Higuero was appointed to the position of Secretary General of CITES, the first woman to lead the convention. Higuero led the CITES Secretariat during Conferences of the Parties in 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland (CoP18) and in 2022 in Panama City, Panama (CoP19).

Widely cited for her expertise on environmental economics and sustainable development, she has served the UN in various leadership posts for 24 years. These posts include serving from 1994 to 2014 as coordinator of Pan-European Biological and Landscape Diversity Strategy at UN Environment headquarters in Nairobi and in the program’s regional office in Europe.

Between 2014 and 2018, Higuero served in the UN Economic Commission for Europe, lastly as the director of the Economic Cooperation and Trade Division, where she led and supervised programs on trade facilitation, access to markets, innovation and competitiveness policies, and public-private partnerships. Before that, she was director of the commission’s Forests, Land and Housing Division and chief of the Operational Activities and Review Section of the Environment Division.

During the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 she noted that preventing illegal wildlife trade not only helps conserving habitats, but these habitats create a safety barrier for humans that can prevent pathogens from animals passing themselves on to people.