Gina Cosentino is a Senior Social Development Specialist in the Africa Region at the World Bank. She works on social sustainability, safeguards and social risk, and social inclusion. She is also one of the regional points on Indigenous Peoples issues.
Gina has over two decades experience working with Indigenous Peoples, traditional communities, ethnic minorities, and vulnerable groups from local to global scales. Her technical/sectoral experience extends to conservation, climate change, land tenure, traditional knowledge, comparative constitutionalism, intellectual and cultural property and heritage, social assessments, stakeholder engagement and GRM, gender-inclusive methods, resource development, sustainable livelihoods, global health, education, and social conflict. While Gina has a extensive experience working throughout Africa, she has also worked in other regions including LAC, SA, EAP and NA. Prior to the Bank she held senior leadership roles including as Director of Indigenous and Communal Conservation at The Nature Conservancy in DC, and in two national Indigenous Peoples’ organizations in Canada, among others. She was a visiting scholar at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University, taught at the University of Toronto and Ryerson University in the department of political science, and at the University of Pretoria Law Centre for Human Rights. She is a published author, blogger, frequent university guest lecturer and invited UN expert on a range of issues.
She is an avid cyclist and hiking enthusiast and she says while she’s no Van Gogh or Renoir, she enjoys painting landscapes.