Sogol Jafarzadeh is an Environmental Scientist with more than 13 years of experience working on environmental policy and inclusive governance. She has long experience in policy making, climate and water diplomacy with a strong focus on gender and inclusivity and has worked for various regional and international agencies.
In her capacity as UNU-INWEH’s UN and Government Relations Coordinator and the Gender and Capacity Building Focal Point for Africa, she works with the UN System, member States and a wide range of stakeholders around the world to develop partnership opportunities and enhance cooperation on water, health and sanitation, climate and environmental issues with a special attention to their gender-related and justice implications. Based in Harare, Zimbabwe, she liaises with partners and donors in the region to identify new opportunities for collaboration and implements relevant projects and activities in Africa.
Sogol joined UNU from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), where she served as the Environmental Affairs Adviser, focusing on transboundary water cooperation and water diplomacy. She was also the gender focal point of her department and led efforts to establish the Women in Water Management Network in Central Asia and Afghanistan. Before joining the OSCE, Sogol worked at UNEP and UNDP, supporting initiatives on environmental policy, including combating sand and dust storms.
Sogol holds an MSc in Environmental Sciences from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) and a postgraduate certificate in Conservation Biology from the Earth Institute, Columbia University in New York. She also worked as an Adjunct Instructor at the City College of New York, teaching environmental sciences and environmental psychology, and as a researcher at ETH Zurich, looking at drivers of land degradation in water-scarce rangelands.