Dr Mumba is the Secretary General of the Convention on Wetlands and is a Zambian-born environmentalist with over 25 years of global experience in environmental management and Sustainable Development. She joined the Convention on Wetlands the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), where she served as the Director for the Rome Centre for Sustainable Development with a focus on climate change, sustainable development and nature protection and the agency lead for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, leading UNDP’s engagement as a Strategic Collaborating Partner in the Decade, and she supported the Italian Government with G20 Process during the Italy Presidency and also COP26 CoPresidency with the United Kingdom.
Prior to joining UNDP, Dr Mumba worked at the global headquarters of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) for 12 years in different functions, including as Head of the UNEP Terrestrial Ecosystems Programme for the agency. While in this role she also served as the Chair of the Global Partnership on Forests and Landscape Restoration- GPFLR – (a network of many global partners hosted by IUCN and FAO). She is the founder of the Network of African Women Environmentalists (NAWE) and she has received numerous accolades for her work, including being named one the 100 most influential African women.
On International Women’s Day 2022, she was honored by the Global Landscape Forum (GLF) as one of 16 women from around the world restoring the planet. She is no stranger to the Convention on Wetlands, having worked at the Secretariat of the Convention as a Junior Professional between 1998 and 1999. She started her career at the Environmental Council of Zambia, and held positions with WWF at its international headquarters in Switzerland, in the United Kingdom and in East Africa.
Dr Mumba holds a PhD in Wetland Hydrology and Conservation from University College London (UCL), a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Zambia, and has published extensively in scientific journals and as a contributor to book chapters and in news media. She is an Honorary Senior Research Associate at UCL