Luis Felipe López Calva has been the UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean since September 2018. He has almost 30 years of professional experience, advising several Mexican governments, in addition to UNDP and more recently the World Bank, where he recently served as Practice Manager of the Global Poverty and Equity Practice (Europe and Central Asia). He was Co-Director and Lead Author of the World Development Report 2017 on 'Governance and Law'. Previously, he was Lead Economist and Regional Poverty Advisor in the Bank's Europe and Central Asia Region, and Lead Economist in the Poverty, Equity and Gender Unit of the PREM Directorate of Latin America and the Caribbean, also at the World Bank. From 2007 to 2010, he served as Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean at UNDP-RBLAC in New York. Mr. López-Calva has been an associate editor of the Journal of Human Development and Capacities and is a member of the Human Development and Capacities Association. He has also been president of the Network on Inequality and Poverty of the Economic Association of Latin America and the Caribbean. His research interests focus on labor markets, poverty and inequality, institutions, and the microeconomics of development, having presented his research at leading institutions including: Harvard University, Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, San Diego; and the Center for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. He has a master's degree in economics from Boston University, as well as a master's and doctorate in economics from Cornell University.
Born in Mexico, he is married with three children.