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The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), a global policy and aid institution, appointed Turkish finance expert Sebnem Sener as Director for Strategic Plan Implementation and Integration, tasking her with executing its 2026–2029 roadmap.
Sener took office on Feb. 9, 2026, and became the first Turkish woman to hold this director-level role within UNDP. She was assigned to the agency’s Executive Office at its New York headquarters and reports directly to UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo.
In her new position, Sener oversees the rollout and coordination of UNDP’s 2026–2029 Strategic Plan across policy, program, partnership and financing tools. Her mandate includes aligning institutional priorities across global, regional, and country-level units and ensuring that priority initiatives produce joint and measurable development outcomes.
Sener holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Middle East Technical University and a doctorate from George Washington University, focused on consumer confidence and the real economy.
She has more than 20 years of finance and development experience, including seven years at the World Bank on financial sector reform and crisis preparedness, and since joining UNDP in 2015 has led sustainable finance work, most recently heading a unit mobilizing private capital for development projects.
The institution explains that UNDP operates in 170 countries and territories and focuses on poverty reduction, lowering inequality and exclusion, and strengthening countries’ capacity for sustainable progress.
Its 2026–2029 Strategic Plan is built around four main goals that cover expanding prosperity for all, strengthening effective governance, protecting a healthy planet and increasing resilience against crises.
The institution says these goals are reinforced by three cross-cutting accelerators that support all program areas, namely digital and artificial intelligence innovation, gender equality and sustainable finance.
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