Background
She is the daughter of Manuel Grynspan Burstin and Sara Mayufis Schapiro, immigrants from Poland of Jewish ancestry.
She is the daughter of Manuel Grynspan Burstin and Sara Mayufis Schapiro, immigrants from Poland of Jewish ancestry.
Grynspan studied economics and sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and later obtained a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in in economics from the University of Costa Rica and later on a Master of Arts in Economics from Sussex University.
She was the Vice President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998. Grynspan previously served as Director of United Nations Development Programme"s Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, appointed to the position by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in December 2005. Early life and She has been a professor and researcher at the Economic Science Research Institute at the University of Costa Rica.
Before joining the United Nations, she held various official functions in her country such as Vice-President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998 and concurrently as Housing Minister from 1996 to 1998, Coordinating Minister of Economy from 1995 to 1996, Coordinating Minister of Social Affairs from 1994 to 1998 and Vice-Minister of Finance from 1986 to 1988.
She served as Director of the Subregional Headquarters in Mexico of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) from 2001 to 2006, where she also served as Company-Chair of the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Executive Board. At the United Nations and prior to her current appointment, Mississippi
Grynspan served as Assistant-Secretary-General and Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the from 2006 to 2010. Rebeca Grynspan was unanimously elected Secretary General of the Ibero-American Secretary General (Secretaria General Iberoamericana),, in a special meeting of the Ministers of External Relations on February 24, 2014 in Mexico City, in which representatives of all 22 member countries were present.
She succeeded in the office Enrique V. Iglesias who had held the position since the establishment of in 2005.
She was also a member of the United Nations Millennium Project’s Task Force on Poverty and Economic Development and of the United Nations High-Level Panel on Financing for Development.