H.E. Ms. Marta Maurás Pérez
Chairperson of the Council Bureau

H.E. Ms. Marta Maurás Pérez is currently Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Chile to the United Nations, other international organizations and the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. 

Ambassador Marta Maurás Pérez is a sociologist, international consultant and lecturer on children’s rights, gender equity, human rights, social policy and international relations, expert in multilateral affairs. In 2014 she was named by President Michelle Bachelet as Ambassador/Permanent Representative of Chile in Geneva, the first woman ambassador of Chile to the UN.

Most of Ms. Maurás’ professional career has been linked to the United Nations system. Ambassador Maurás was Director for Economic and Social Affairs at the Executive Office of UN former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and Chief of Cabinet of the Deputy Secretary-General, between 1998 and 2005. Among others, she contributed to the planning and realization of the Millennium Summit and the establishment of the MDGs and to the implementation of the SG´s UN Reform Agenda. She actively participated in the design of peace operations in Kosovo, East Timor, Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti. She was focal point for the SG’s Program on HIV/AIDS and co-organized the General Assembly Special Session on the subject, as well as its Special Session on Children. She then moved to become the Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin-America and the Caribbean (2005 and 2007).  

From 1992 to 1998 she was the UNICEF Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, based in Bogotá, Colombia. She formed part of the Senior Management Reform Team that designed and launched a major management overhaul of global UNICEF in 1995. She led the UNICEF contribution to the social movement for peace in Colombia in 1997 and participated in the negotiation process that led to the liberation by the ELN of 15 abducted teenage girls. She presided over the UNICEF shift in programme focus to assume the challenge of implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Before this, Ms. Maurás served with UNICEF in various senior positions including Chief of the UNICEF Sub-Saharan Africa Section at Headquarters in New York, Representative in Mozambique and Swaziland and Senior Planning Officer in Pakistan, overlooking emergency situations and developing models in such contexts for sustained development efforts focused on women and children. Previously as Regional Adviser on Women’s Affairs in UNICEF Latin America and the Caribbean (1975-1980) she designed and run the first regional programme of UNICEF for the development and empowerment of women.

In 2008 after retirement from the UN, she was elected member of the UN Committee on Children’s Rights, where she served as Vice-Chairperson until 2013, leading among others the first ever General Comment on the impact of Business on human/child rights and directing a Day of General Debate on Migration and Children. Since 2013 she has worked in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility and Children’s Rights, among others as UNICEF Senior Consultant.  She is regularly invited to undertake advisory missions and conduct lectures in many countries related to human rights and development.

Marta Maurás is Chilean, holds a degree in sociology from the Catholic University of Chile, and certificates in Public Administration from the University of Connecticut and in Ontological Coaching from the Newfield Institute. 

Marta Maurás is fluent in English, French and Portuguese.