“After a brief break of just over two years, I am returning to a place where I left a piece of my heart.”
After graduating with a degree in Architecture and becoming certified in 1998, followed by a long period working as a freelance architect, I embarked on a professional path marked by complex experiences and challenges. These allowed me to supplement my technical skills with knowledge of environmental and cultural heritage protection and active preservation, while also gaining an increasingly broad perspective on the fascinating world of development cooperation.
My specialization as an Expert in Strategic Environmental Assessment and a Manager for Sustainable Development in 2000, followed by a long tenure at the National Environmental Protection Agency (ANPA) and the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA) until 2012, where I also served as an Environmental Inspector under Directive IPPC No. 96/61/CE, paved the way for a collaboration with the offices of the Directorate General for Development Cooperation and the Central Technical Unit of the MAECI until 2015, and with the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) from 2016 to the present. As the head of infrastructure projects and large-scale works, as well as initiatives in the energy, environment, and cultural heritage sectors funded through grants and aid credits for Italian development cooperation, I have been responsible for overseeing complex infrastructure programs in countries in the Mediterranean region, Africa, and Central America.
From 2018 to 2023, I served as the Deputy Head of the AICS office in Beirut during one of the most challenging periods for the Country: the 2019 economic crisis, Covid-19, the 2020 Beirut port explosion, the energy crisis, and the 2023 earthquake in Turkey.
Upon my return to AICS Rome in 2023, leveraging my expertise in development finance, aid credit financing, and debt conversion, I was assigned the coordination and management of multidisciplinary teams. Among these were the Sviluppo + Team, for processing financing applications under Article 27, paragraph 3, letter a of Law 125/2014, and the working group for drafting the procedures for managing development cooperation and emergency grant initiatives.
Today, with renewed determination, team spirit, and love for a land to which I dedicate my introductory thought, I feel compelled, in my new role as Director, to write this new chapter at a unique historical moment, one in which wars are marking the pace of a global crisis that calls us to our important responsibilities.
“The guiding thread will be to work for virtuous paths that can provide a concrete response to problems, and initiate active and careful participation from the various actors in development and humanitarian emergencies.”
Liana De Rosa