New Permanent Observer for International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance Presents Letter of Appointment

(Based on information provided by the Protocol and Liaison Service)

The new Permanent Observer for the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance to the United Nations, Annika Silvia-Leander, presented her letter of appointment to UN Secretary-General António Guterres today.

Concurrent to her appointment, Ms. Silvia-Leander serves as the head of the Institute’s North America offices in New York and Washington, D.C., as well as leading international outreach in the region, since June 2021.  From 2018 to 2021, she headed the Institute’s Democracy Assessment and political analysis programme, producing its flagship report on the Global State of Democracy. Between 2015 and 2018, she served as the Institute’s senior adviser to the Institute’s Secretary-General.

From 2005 to 2015, she worked at the World Bank, under various capacities, primarily as a social development specialist covering civic engagement, community-driven development and poverty reduction, in its offices in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Washington, D.C, among other places.  She began her career at the AVINA Foundation in Costa Rica, managing grants to civil society organizations in Latin America.

Ms. Silvia-Leander holds a PhD in social policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom.  She has a master’s in public policy from the University of Oxford and a master’s in development studies from the University of Sussex’s Institute of Development Studies in Brighton, both in the United Kingdom.  She received her undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Stockholm, Sweden.