Huda Ali Shareef
Permanent Representative of the Republic of Maldives to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
Biography
She holds undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Economics, an MBA, and a Master’s in Tourism studies. She has participated in short-term courses/workshops in commercial diplomacy, international trade negotiation, loan negotiation and evaluation, and development studies.
Prior to joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she worked as a Director at the Ministry of Planning and National Development and earlier as a Senior Program Officer at the Department of External Resources. She also worked as a tutor at the James Cook University of North Queensland.
She joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in December 2018. She assumed her post as the Deputy Ambassador and Charge’ d’affaires a.i. at the Embassy of Maldives in Thailand in March 2019. It was with her as CDA that the setting up of the Embassy was completed and it was formally opened in October 2019.
Being an active member of the diplomatic community in Thailand, Ms. Huda is on the Organizing Committee of the Thai Silk Road to the World Project organized by the Tourism Authority of Thailand. In February 2020, she was appointed as the first Permanent Representative of the Maldives to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), which helped bolster Maldives’ role within the organization.
At UNESCAP the Maldives has since been the Vice Chair of the 8th Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) and the 7th Session of the Committee on Environment and Development. PR Huda served as a Rapporteur of one of the five roundtables at the 8th APFSD. She has also chaired/facilitated negotiations/consultations on the environment and SDGs at UNESCAP. In November 2022, the Maldives initiated and co-led a partnership event on air quality management in the Asia Pacific. At the 79th Commission session of UNESCAP in 2023, the Maldives was the main sponsor of UNESCAP resolutions ‘Accelerating the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda’, and resolution ‘Accelerating Climate Action in Asia and the Pacific for Sustainable Development’.
In June 2023, Ms. Huda was nominated by the President for approval by the People’s Majlis, to the post of the Ambassador of the Maldives to the People’s Republic of China.