Dr. Marianne Kjellén, Senior Water Advisor at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), works with UNDP’s Water & Ocean Governance Programme in support of operations through UNDP country offices and regional hubs. She provides in-house and external water-related advice and expertise and oversees project activities for knowledge management and capacity development.
The Water & Ocean Governance Programme focuses on SDGs 6 and 14 with the entry point of governance. This involves managing capacity development and promotion of Integrated Water Resources Management, along with Source-to-Sea and Ridge-to-Reef approaches. Climate resilience, along with cross-cutting issues of Human Rights, Gender Equality and Integrity (anti-corruption) are addressed throughout the work. Representing UNDP at UN-Water, Marianne Kjellén is a regular contributor to UN-Water’s global reporting.
Trained in Human Geography, Marianne Kjellén specialises in water governance as it relates to urban environmental management, water supply and sanitation and inclusive approaches for the reduction of poverty and inequality. Her research background involves studies of public-private collaboration and the relation with formal and informal ways of distributing water, with case studies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Marianne Kjellén has over twenty-five years’ experience of water and development work. Prior to joining the UNDP in 2016, she worked with the Stockholm International Water Institute, and before that with the Stockholm Environment Institute and Stockholm University.