INSTITUTE:

UNU-EHS

OFFICE:

The Munich Climate Insurance Initiative (MCII)

E-MAIL:

rojas-ferreira@ehs.unu.edu

PHONE:

+49-228-815-0216

NATIONALITY:

Colombia

Research Interests

• Climate Change
• Disaster risk management
• Sustainability

Education

• MSc. Natural Resources Management and Development – Cologne University of Applied Sciences. Cologne, Germany
• B.E. Civil Engineering – Los Andes University. Bogota, Colombia
• B.E. Industrial Engineering – Los Andes University. Bogota, Colombia

Biographical Statement

Alvaro holds a MSc in Natural Resources Management from the TH Cologne and two engineering degrees from the Universidad de los Andes, Colombia. He has experience supporting project implementation and evaluation in the fields of GHG mitigation and climate risk management with ICLEI and GIZ, respectively. As part of interdisciplinary and multicultural teams, he has worked in project coordination including monitoring systems, stakeholder engagement, capacity building through workshops and online tools, and ensuring appropriate reporting and documentation. Alvaro is particularly interested in how to integrate different types of adaptation measures to increase the benefits of the investments at the lowest financial, social and ecological costs.

He has presented the result of his research work in several platforms, including the World Bank Land & Poverty Annual Conference in 2015, where he discussed his bachelor thesis on “Development of community-based land administration methodology for indigenous groups as an instrument for poverty reduction and sustainable development; Case study: Mitú, Colombia”. Later on he presented his research on “Water-Energy Nexus: the impacts of droughts in hydropower generation in the Magdalena Basin in Colombia” in the EGU General Assembly 2019.

Alvaro has an academic background in financial risk management from his bachelor studies which he contrasts with his knowledge in sustainability. In his current role as part of the Economics of Climate Adaptation Studies project, he is involved in activities that aim at balancing economic costs with the social priorities of different groups, to identify the optimal measures for climate risk adaptation in the case study regions. His tasks are related to stakeholder engagement, data collection and analysis, and reporting and documentation.