Head of Resident Coordinator's Office in Thailand

In an Upper Middle-Income Country, the UN has a key role in ensuring a cutting-edge, integrated policy support to advance sustainable development, premised on partnerships that support innovation, digitization and foresight with young people, civil society, and the private sector. 

Iwona Spytkowski, the Head of Resident Coordinator's Office in Thailand, has a key focus in supporting the UN’s partnership with youth to leverage inter-generational collaboration to promote innovative solutions for the SDGs in line with the Youth2030 Strategy. Iwona helped establish the SDGs Youth Panel, an advisory board to the UN Country Team and the Resident Coordinator, which she runs together with Teddy Bovornpong Vathanathanakul, the Communications Officer. The panel brings the voices of young leaders working on issues such as climate change, food waste, disability inclusion, gender, racism and inequality to the center of the UN’s work as well as domestic policy agendas and international fora. For instance, Iwona supported the Panel’s input to the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework 2022-2026. She is liaising closely with the UN Youth Office and the Assistant Secretary General for Youth Affairs, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, and the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children during their respective missions to Thailand on issues affecting young people and advocating for a child friendly justice system. UN Thailand is one of six in the world to reach the youth scorecard’s global targets of exceeding 80 per cent by 2024.