Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, LLB (Dar-es-Salaam), LLM (Dalhousie), is a legal expert and diplomat specialising in environmental law and sustainability. Currently, she serves as the Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi, appointed in 2022. With over two decades of service at UNEP, she has held key roles including Director of the Law Division and Deputy Director of the Ecosystems Division.

From 2020 to 2023, she was the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, guiding global consensus on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. In Bonn, she served as Executive Secretary for the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species, Acting Executive Secretary of UNEP/ASCOBANS, and Interim Executive Secretary of the UNEP/Gorilla Agreement. Prior to UNEP, she worked with Tanzania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation as Counsellor and Senior Legal Counsel, while lecturing on Public International Law and Diplomacy.

Awarded the Nicholas Robinson Award for Excellence in Environmental Law and the Kew International Award, she has been widely recognized among Time’s 100 Most Influential People and Financial Times’ 25 Most Influential Women. She is co-chair of the Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures.