Management Group

The Management Group is the central decision-making body, including seven UN agencies (UNFCCC, WMO, UNEP, IPCC, the GCF, the GEF, and UNU) and co-chairs of the Science Committee and the Policy and Finance Committee.

It provides overall guidance and direction on WASP’s strategy, workplan, budget and activities. It is supported by the WASP Secretariat and advises on all other aspects of WASP’s work.

Chair

Abdalah Mokssit

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Mr Abdalah Mokssit is the Secretary of the IPCC. He has vast experience with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). He is a former Vice-Chair of IPCC Working Group I, which deals with the physical science basis of climate change, and has served as a member of the WMO commissions apart from serving as the vice president of the World Meteorological Congress. Mr. Mokssit has held a number of leadership positions including Chief of dynamic meteorology service of Morocco, the Head the National Centre for Climate and Meteorological Research (CNCRM) in Morocco, and was also appointed as the Director of the National Meteorological Department of Morocco, a career spanning over 25 years in strategic management. He is an alumnus of the University of Rabat in Morocco where he earned a degree in mathematics. In 1995, he acquired a Telematics and Information Systems degree as well as a meteorology degree from the National School of Meteorology of Toulouse in France.

Members

Jian Liu

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Mr Jian Liu is the Director of the Science Division, UN Environment Programme. Jian Liu has over 30 years of professional experience in science and policy, in the specific domains of ecosystems management, agriculture, environment and climate change at national, regional and global levels, in particular in developing countries. Jian holds a doctorate degree in Physical Geography from the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. He was the Director of UN Environment’s International Ecosystem Management Partnership, the first global centre on ecosystem management in the global south, which he established, as the founding director. Prior to this appointment, he served as the Chief of UN Environment Programme’s Climate Change Adaptation Unit and the Deputy Secretary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). His earlier posts include Deputy Director-General of the Bureau of Resources and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Director of the Chinese Ecosystem Research Network, and Manager of Environment Program of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development. He assumed chairmanship of the World Adaptation Science Programme in July 2018 for a two-year period.

Christopher Hewitt

World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

Prof Chris Hewitt is the Director of Climate Services Branch at the WMO since November 2022. Prior to joining the WMO he worked for the UK Met Office for over 30 years, most recently as the Head of International Climate Services, alongside a part-time position as Professor of Climate Science at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia. Chris’s early career was as a research scientist, developing climate models and undertaking climate research and climate modelling. His next decade built on his scientific research and moved him into project and programme management for large climate-related research projects, including leading and coordinating several key European climate projects. Following World Climate Conference-3 in Geneva in 2009 he took a lead role establishing and developing the UK Met Office’s climate services worldwide, has been central to developing the UN’s Global Framework for Climate Services, and led several international climate service-related Expert Teams for the WMO. He has been developing and delivering climate services with many organisations around the world ensuring pull-through of science to services for societal benefit and guiding science developments to be aligned to societal needs. Prof Hewitt holds a Doctoral degree and a Master’s degree in weather and climate from the University of Reading, and a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computing from the University of Exeter. He is Honorary Professor of Climate Science, Centre for Applied Climate Science, University of Southern Queensland, Australia, and Honorary Professor of Climate Services, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, UK.

Youssef Nassef

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

Mr Youssef Nassef is the Director of the Adaptation Programme, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Youssef Nassef has led the adaptation workstreams under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change since their inception. He possesses over 30 years of experience in diplomacy and international environmental policy and is a seconded diplomat from the Egyptian Foreign Service. While assuming progressively higher levels of leadership at the UNFCCC, he led UNFCCC support for a number of ongoing initiatives on adaptation. These include the inception and support for NAPAs and NAPs; the Nairobi Work Programme – an international knowledge hub for impacts, vulnerability and adaptation; and the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage. He recently created the Resilience Frontiers initiative which applies foresight for attaining post-2030 resilience. He regularly contributes his vision, insights and thought leadership to international conferences on resilience and adaptation to climate change and their nexus with sustainable development, often focusing on developing countries. He assumed chairmanship of the World Adaptation Science Programme in July 2020 for a two-year period. He holds a Doctoral degree in International Technology Policy and Management and a Master’s degree in International Environmental Policy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, as well as a Master’s degree in Middle East Studies and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Physics from the American University in Cairo.

Pa Ousman Jarju

The Green Climate Fund (GCF)

Mr Pa Ousman Jarju is Director of GCF's Country Programming Division. Formerly, he was the Gambian Minister of Environment, Climate Change and Natural Resources and Chair of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Pa Ousman was Special Climate Change Envoy of the Gambia and has extensive diplomatic experience across the 47 LDCs, China, the United States and the European Union. He has gained wide-ranging managerial experience in the Gambia's Department of Water Resources as its Director and then overseeing Minister. Pa Ousman holds advanced diplomas from the Institute of Commercial Management (UK) and the IHE Institute for Water Education (the Netherlands), as well as a Bachelor of Engineering in Chemical Engineering.

Chizuru Aoki

The Global Environment Facility (GEF)

Ms Chizuru Aoki is Lead Environmental Specialist for the GEF Programming Unit. She heads GEF’s strategy and representation in multiple global environmental agreements for which the GEF serves as the financial mechanism, and leads GEF’s engagement with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. She also manages the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF), and the Capacity-building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT) Trust Fund. Chizuru joined the GEF in 2010 as Senior Technology Transfer Officer and served as the Coordinator of the Climate Change Mitigation Focal Area since 2011. Prior to joining the GEF in 2010, she was Senior Programme Officer at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), where she coordinated one of the largest UN-led environmental interventions in Iraq to facilitate ecosystem management and technology transfer. She was also a Fulbright Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), receiving her Ph.D in Technology, Management and Policy in 2002. Earlier in her career, she managed a program to promote cleaner production in developing countries. Chizuru holds a BS in Civil Engineering from Rice University and a MS in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a citizen of Japan.

Shen Xiaomeng

United Nations University (UNU)

Ms Xiaomeng Shen concurrently holds the roles of UNU Vice-Rector in Europe (UNU-ViE) and Director of the UNU Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS). Previously, Xiaomeng worked with the then International Bureau of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung; BMBF) at the Project Management Agency of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt-Projektträger; DLR-PT), both as Senior Scientific Officer (2011‒2012), with a focus on multilateral science and technology development in Asia and Oceania, and as Deputy Head of the Department for Cooperation with Asia and Oceania; Head of the Cooperation with East Asia and Oceania Unit; and as Coordinator of the European Commission’s EURAXESS Worldwide initiative facilitating the mobility of scientists (from 2013 – 2020). Before joining DLR-PT, Ms Shen worked with UNU-EHS as a Resident Scholar and PhD Researcher (2004‒2008), and thereafter as an Associate Academic Officer (2008‒2010) with a focus on social vulnerability, environmentally induced migration issues and water–related disaster and risk research from cultural perspectives. Ms Shen holds a BA degree from the Beijing Foreign Studies University, a MA degree from the University of Bonn, and a PhD degree from the University of Bonn/UNU-EHS, with a focus on flood risk perception and communication in different cultural contexts.