Ms. Sofia Monsalve Suarez
Secretary General, FIAN International (NGO Major Group)
Ms. Sofía Monsalve Suárez is the Secretary General of FIAN International, which is an international human rights organization working for the right to food and nutrition. Before turning Secretary General in 2016, she coordinated FIAN’s program on land and natural resources for more than 15 years. This work included field research visits and fact-finding missions to twenty countries; close collaboration with peasants, family farmers, landless people, fisher folks, indigenous peoples, rural workers organized in the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC); conceptual work and research on the intersection between human rights, land and natural resource governance in collaboration with various academic institutions; and extensive advocacy work in the UN human rights system, inter alia, preparing and presenting FIAN’s reports to the UN treaty bodies and the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council; and contributing to the development of human rights standard setting. Likewise, she has extensive experience collaborating with the UN agencies working on food and agriculture, inter alia, coordinating the civil society participation to various process of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS).