The UN Resident Coordinator Office
The Resident Coordinator (RC) system encompasses all organizations of the United Nations system dealing with operational activities for development, regardless of their formal presence in Suriname. The RC system aims to bring together the different UN agencies to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of operational activities at the country level in Suriname.
Coordinating development operations promotes more strategic support for national plans and priorities, makes operations more efficient and reduces transaction costs for governments. This helps the UN to be a more relevant and reliable partner for the Government of Suriname.
The United Nations system in Suriname is represented by Ms. Joanna Kazana; she is the UN Resident Coordinator for Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten.
The UN Resident Coordinator in Suriname
Ms. Joanna Kazana has over 20 years of experience in international development cooperation. Prior to this appointment, she was the UN Resident Coordinator in the Republic of Belarus where she positioned the UN system as an impartial and neutral partner and substantive authority on sustainable development in the context of upper-middle income countries. She led the UN response to COVID-19 and supported the UN system’s action for refugees and migrants. Since the beginning of her tenure, she has strongly advocated for and collaborated closely with NGOs addressing human rights and sustainable development in Belarus.
Before that, Ms. Kazana worked for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in New York, providing support to UNDP country offices in Europe and Central Asia and working closely with UNDP’s strategic partners, including the UN Member States’ missions in New York. She represented UNDP on the Steering Committee of UNDP-Russia Development Trust Fund and, together with the Department of Political Affairs, led the work of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Ukraine.
From 2005-2010, Ms. Kazana served as UNDP Deputy Representative in Ukraine, and created one of UNDP’s largest local development projects “Community Based Approach to Local Development in Ukraine”.
She began her professional career in Poland where she worked as a UNDP National Programme Officer in Warsaw, then as an international consultant for the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and as an Advisor on international programme development and harm reduction for the Soros Foundation. She has facilitated South-South cooperation and knowledge transfer on HIV/AIDS prevention and care.
Ms. Kazana hold a Master’s degree in Economics and International Relations from the Warsaw School of Economics.
