::Presidencia de la República de Colombia::

Carlos Rufino Costa Posada

www.minambiente.gov.co

PERSONAL PROFILE

Broad experience in environmental sustainability, disaster risk management and adaptation to climate change: from design and implementation of local projects to the negotiation and adoption of national policies. Passionate about sustainable development and finding simple solutions within existing limitations of developing countries, always keeping in mind the welfare of local communities. Convinced that effective development strategies require the involvement of all stakeholders and the support from government agencies from different sectors. Built a professional reputation for promoting partnerships at all levels as part of the solutions.

Excellent academic record complemented by distinguished career in executive and managerial positions in governmental agencies. Outstanding relationship capabilities with key stakeholders at all levels, such as, local communities, NGO’s, multilateral organizations and local and national government agencies from different sectors.
Knowledge of the international disaster risk management and climate change communities, particularly in the Americas and in multilateral agencies as a result of positions such as permanent representative of Colombia with World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) for the last four years; WMO Chairman of Disaster Risk Reduction for the region of North and Central America and the Caribbean; member of the Andean Committee for Disaster Risk Reduction,

Spanish version

and member of the board of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Adaptation Fund as representative of G77 and China.
Possess a high sense of responsibility and commitment to obtain results and to its team. Competent to work well both individually and as part of a team; maintaining respect for different viewpoints and opinions. Highly leadership qualities that support team motivation, commitment, and maintain focus on execution and implementation under pressure.
Experience dealing with institutional challenges such as restructuring large organizations, launching and developing new areas of governmental work, large project management, set-up of new organizational structures and designing and successfully negotiating innovative and pioneer projects such as the first Global Environment Facility (GEF) project on climate change adaptation.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

April 2009- Minister of Environment Housing and Territorial Development. Bogotá, Colombia.

May 2008 Senior Expert in Risk Management and Climate Change, Latin American and Caribbean at the Unit of Urban Development and Water of World Bank Washington D.C. United States

Jan 2004 – National Institute of Hydrology and Meteorology. Bogotá. Colombia.
General Director

Financial, administrative and technical management of an institution of 500 employees and US $30 million/year budget
Coordination and implementation of action plans of the national institution responsible for:

Monitoring and evaluating the state of the natural resources of the country, the level of air and water contamination and the level of environmental sustainability
Management of the national early warning system for hydrological and meteorological events, including forest fires and landslides.
Climate Change risk assessment and provision of methodological approaches for national adaptation.
Management of the national environment information system.
Other responsibilities
Colombia’s Permanent representative of WMO, Vice-president of South America branch of WMO, WMO Chairman of Disaster Risk Reduction for the region of North, Central America and the Caribbean, and member of the board of the UNFCCC Adaptation Fund as representative of G77 and China.

Jul 2001 – Jan 2004 National Planning Department, Bogotá. Colombia.
Director of National Environmental Policy

Coordination of the formulation and evaluation of the environmental and disaster risk reduction chapters of the National Development Plan (National Action Plan of each presidential period)
Formulation, coordination and implementation of the environmental and disaster risk reduction policies that require the involvement of more than one sector or ministry.
Evaluating ministerial requests for investment resources from the National Budget on environmental and disaster risk reduction projects and yearly pre-assigning of the National Investment Budget to be approved by Congress.
Evaluation and negotiation of the investment loans taken by the nation to fund environmental and disaster risk management policies
Other responsibilities: Board member of the National Environmental Fund, and the Environmental Action Fund. Member of the Andean Committee for Disaster Reduction, the National Environmental Council and the Coordination Committee of the National System for Disaster Prevention and Management.

Dec 1998 – Jul 2004       Biological Resources National Research Institute, Alexander von Humboldt, Bogotá
Project Manager: Andean Biodiversity Conservation Project
                               Coordination of the design and implementation of a US $30 million dollar project to improve the conservation of the Andean Biodiversity, co-funded by the GEF and with the World Bank as the implementing agency.
Jan 1997 – Aug 1998      University of Cambridge. Geography Department. Cambridge. United Kingdom
Research Associate
                               Design and implementation of research projects, including:
o                              Design and testing of “CLEVER Mapping” the methodology used by the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology of Great Britain−ITE− to produce the Land Cover Map of Great Britain 2000, first based on satellite imagery. In partnership with the National Environment Research Council −NERC−, Laser Scan and ITE, funded by the British National Science Foundation.
o                              Design and Testing of “DE-RELIEF” a software to eliminate the shadowing effect in satellite imagery produced by the topography. Funded by ITE.
Jan 1995 – Dic 1996      University of Cambridge. Geography Department. Cambridge. United Kingdom
Research Assistant
Jan 1990 – Feb 1991      UNION Tec Ltd. Bogotá. Colombia
Structural Design Engineer
                                 Structural anti-seismic large buildings design

TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Cambridge University, United Kingdom
Los Andes University, Colombia

EDUCATION
Cambridge University, UK
1993-1996 Ph.D. in Global Imaging System (GIS) and Remote Sensing
1992-1993 M.Phil. in GIS and Remote Sensing

Los Andes University, Colombia
1989-1990 M.SC. in Seismic engineering
1984-1989 Civil Engineer

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LANGUAGE SKILLS
Spanish (Native), English (Fluent), French (Fluent conversation, regular writing)

PUBLICATIONS
Costa Posada, Carlos. 2005. El índice de escasez de agua ¿un indicador de crisis o una alerta para orientar la gestión del recurso hídrico?. Revista de Ingeniería Facultad de Ingeniería Universidad de Los Andes. v.22, p.102 - 109, 2005.
Costa Posada, Carlos. Amable, G., Devereux, B.J., 2004. An efficient image segmentation algorithm for landscape analysis. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation. 6. v.6, n.1, p.47 - 61, 2004.
Costa Posada, Carlos. 2002 Políticas públicas y Regulación en la Prevención y Atención de Desastres. El Resurgir del Eje Cafetero: Lecciones de la reconstrucción física y social. Bogotá, Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo. v.1. p.139 – 148
Costa Posada, Carlos. Rivera H. G., Dominguez E., et al., 2004. Agua. Informe Anual sobre el Estado del Medio Ambiente y los Recusos Naturales Renovables en Colombia.1 ed. Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional de Colombia, 2004
Costa Posada, Carlos. et al., 2004. Ecosistemas. Informe Anual sobre el Estado del Medio Ambiente y los Recursos Naturales Renovables en Colombia.1 ed.Bogotá : Imprenta Nacional de Colombia, 2004
Costa Posada, Carlos, Henriquez, M., Franklyn Ruíz, José, et al. Atlas de Viento y Energía.1 ed. Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional de Colombia, 2006, v.1. p.169.
Costa Posada, Carlos, Gómez, C. E., Sánchez, R., Fajardo Rodríguez, Zoraida, Jaramillo Rodríguez, Omar. Atlas Interactivo de la Degradación de Tierras por Desertificación en Colombia ISBN 958-8067-15-4.1 ed. Bogotá: IDEAM, 2005, v.1. p.30.
Costa Posada, Carlos, Escobar Ochoa, Raúl. Calidad del Recurso Hídrico de Bogotá.1 ed. Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional de Colombia, 2004, v.1. p.89.
Costa Posada, C.R., 1998, Correction of the Topographic Effect in VIS/IR Satellite Imagery. Doctoral Thesis, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge.
Devereux, B.J., Costa Posada, C.R., and Amable, G.S.,1997 Land cover and hydrology of the Messara Catchment, Crete. Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference and Exhibition of the Remote Sensing Society. The University of Reading, England, 2-4 September 1997 (Reading: RSS), pp. 243-248.
Gitas I.Z., Alkides C.C., and Costa Posada C.R., 1997, Evaluation of the potential impacts on the environment by a new gravel extraction site in Cambridgeshire. Use of Arc/Info and ArcView GIS, Presented at the 7th Hellenic Arc/Info Users Conference, Athens, Nov. 1997.
Smith, G.M., Fuller, R.M., Amable, G.S., Costa, C.R., Devereux, B.J., 1997 CLEVER Mapping: An implementation of a per-parcel classification procedure within an integrated GIS environment. Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference and Exhibition of the Remote Sensing Society. The University of Reading, England, 2-4 September 1997 (Reading: RSS), pp. 21-26.
Costa Posada, C.R., and Devereux, B.J., 1995, Reduction of the topographic effect on SPOT imagery. (The Minnaert model applied to South-West Crete). In Image and Signal Processing for Remote Sensing II, Europto Series. (Bellingham: SPIE), pp. 137-151.
Costa Posada, C.R., 1993. Correction of the topographic effect on satellite Imagery. Proceedings of the VI. Cartagena Colombia, 12-16 October 1993 (Bogota: SELPER), pp. 341-352.