MONDIACULT Side Event | Culture and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean

Claudia has been a professor in several universities in Brazil. At the University of Fortaleza she was professor in the Law Program (1984-1989); at the State University of Ceará, she was a professor in the Social Sciences Program (1995) and the Business Administration Program (1996-2015), where she coordinated the Academic Master's Degree in Business Administration (1996-2000), created and coordinated the Specialization in Cultural Products and Services Management (2000) and the Professional Master's Degree in Tourism Business Management (1999-2003). She was a professor in the Academic Master's Degree in Public Policy and Society (2014-2019) and the Professional Master's Degree in Planning and Public Policy (2014-2019). She is a professor of the discipline of Economics of Culture and Creative Economy in the SESC Course in Cultural Management at the SESC-SP Research and Training Center.   She was the Superintendent of the National Commercial Apprenticeship Service (SENAC) in Ceará (2001-2002) and Secretary of Culture for the State of Ceará (2003-2006). The program “Culture in Motion: SECULT Itinerante,” created during her tenure, earned her first place in the Cultura Viva Award from the Ministry of Culture (MinC) in the Public Management category (2006). She was responsible for the creation of the National Secretariat for Creative Economy (SEC) and was its first manager (2011-2013). She is a member of the Network of Researchers in Cultural Policies (REDEPCULT) and the Editorial Board of the online publication Políticas Culturais em Revista / Federal University of Bahia-UFBA.   She has published several books and scientific articles, with an emphasis on the themes of Creative Economy, Culture, and Tourism, and was a finalist for the Jabuti Award (Creative Economy Category) with the book “Creativity and emancipation in network communities: contributions to a Brazilian creative economy,” São Paulo, Editora Martins Fontes, 2023. She directed the Observatory of Municipal Governance and Public Policies of Fortaleza, at the Fortaleza Planning Institute - IPLANFOR (2017-2020) and was president of the Creative Economy Sector Chamber at the Ceará State Development Agency - ADECE (2019-2020). She is an ad hoc consultant on Creative Economy for the World Trade Organization (WTO), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (2013 to 2016), and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (2023 and 2024). She is the director of the Celso Furtado International Center for Development Policy. 

Master’s degree in Urban Planning from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), Barcelona, Spain, and Architect from UNPHU (Dominican Republic). He received the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship (Fulbright), in the Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, and is an Eisenhower Fellow 2025.  He has over 20 years of experience in urban planning and design, leading projects for the private sector, public institutions, and multilateral agencies in an international context. Between 2012 and 2015, he was in charge of Urban Affairs at URBE, the project implementation unit of the Dominican Republic’s Administrative Ministry of the Presidency, funded by the French Development Agency (AFD).  He co-founded the Dominican Architecture Laboratory (LAD), the curatorial team behind the first Dominican pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014. He has been visiting critic at Columbia University’s GSAPP and AHO – The Oslo School of Architecture in Norway, taught Urban Planning at Universidad Iberoamericana, and lectured in the Master’s program in Sustainable Territorial Development at FUNGLODE in collaboration with the University of Salamanca.  He is currently the Director of Urban Development at CAF, where the institution manages the Creative and Cultural Economies agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean. 

Gabriela trained as a teacher at the Instituto Normal in Montevideo, Uruguay. She has over 30 years of experience in education, trade unions, and technical teaching assemblies. Until February 2025, she served as principal of Public School No. 166 “María Vittori.”   Throughout her teaching career, she has been dedicated to promoting the right to education and comprehensive learning. She has participated in numerous courses, workshops, and international conferences in support of continuing education. 

Economist specialized in strategy, design, and implementation of public policy. Currently leads the public policy area for Spanish-speaking South America at Netflix. Has more than fifteen years of experience in the public sector, where he held positions such as Secretary of Mobility and Public Works and Chief of Staff in the Government of the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina. In addition, he has worked as a consultant in various Latin American countries, advising multilateral organizations on urban issues and companies such as AT&T, Meta, and Mercado Libre on the development of public policy.   

Krista Pikkat is the Director of Culture and Emergencies at UNESCO’s Culture sector.  In this capacity, she also serves as the Secretary of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its two Protocols (1954, 1999), the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property and the 2001 Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.  Previously, Ms. Pikkat held the positions of Director of the UNESCO Office in Almaty (Kazakhstan) covering Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and Head of the UNESCO Office in Tashkent (Uzbekistan).   Before moving to the field, Ms Pikkat has served the Organization in different capacities at the Headquarters, including at the Sector for External Relations and Cooperation, the Cabinet of the Director-General and the Bureau for Strategic Planning.