Dr. Charles Ian McNeill

Dr. McNeill has devoted the past 30 years as a leader in the United Nations to advance solutions to our climate and biodiversity crises and empowering Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

From 1992 to 2018, he played a central role in transforming UNDP from the UN’s largest development organization into one of the world’s leading global environmental organizations. His first responsibility with UNDP in 1992 was to help establish and build the Global Environment Facility (GEF) which has invested more than $20 billion in environmental protection in developing countries.

McNeill subsequently created and managed other environmental financial mechanisms including the:

  • ‘UN-REDD Programme’, which supports nationally-led reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) efforts in 65 forest countries (2007-2015)

  • ‘Community-based REDD+’ (2013-2014)

  • ‘Africa Adaptation Program’ (2008-2012)

  • ‘UNDP-Spain MDG Achievement Fund’ (2006-2007)

  • ‘MDG Carbon Facility’ (2003-2006).

At the UN, Dr. McNeill was personally responsible for raising and managing more than $600 million for these and other environmental programs around the world.

As Senior Environment & Energy Policy Advisor with UNDP’s Environment & Energy Group from 2005 through 2014, McNeill served on the Group’s ‘Core Management Team’ which oversaw global operations in 140 developing countries and the 400 staff managing over $3 billion in resources and activities in the areas of Biodiversity and Ecosystems, Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation, Sustainable Energy, and Land and Water Management.

Throughout his UN career, McNeill specialized in building effective partnerships among diverse stakeholders including leaders of governments, UN agencies, NGOs, Indigenous Peoples’ organizations, academic institutions and business to solve intractable sustainable development challenges. He also focused on ensuring that Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ voices were heard and reflected in international environmental policy and he led the development and application of social and environmental safeguards to UN programs so that the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities are respected.

He has worked throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America and spoken in hundreds of conferences, symposia and events around the world while writing extensively on topics of his experience and expertise: biodiversity, climate change, tropical forests, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, stakeholder engagement, interfaith action, conservation, nature-based solutions, plant genetic resources, multilateral environmental agreements, intergovernmental and multisectoral cooperation and negotiations, public-private partnerships, leadership and management, facilitation, mediation, and strategic planning.

McNeill has served on dozens of prestigious commissions, councils, boards and delegations, including the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Forests, UN-REDD Programme Policy Board, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Advisory Board, UN Millennium Project Task Force on Environmental Sustainability, World Resources Report Editorial Group, The Democracy Collaborative Board, Religions for Peace Standing Commission for a Sustainable Environment, etc.

Dr. McNeill received his Ph.D. in Genetics with a focus on conservation biology from the University of California at Davis and a Bachelor of Science degree in the Conservation of Natural Resources & Ecology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Holding dual Canadian and U.S. citizenships, Dr McNeill divides his time between British Columbia and New York City when not travelling to work on his areas of interest.

McNeill continues to work at the intersection of biodiversity, climate change, tropical forest conservation and Indigenous Peoples’ rights, particularly in tropical regions of the Amazon, Congo Basin and Southeast Asia.  More recently he has added a focus on the intersection of food security and environmental sustainability. He is committed to transforming the food system that is driving the triple crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and ill health and is working to shift diets, reduce food loss and waste and increase the sustainability of food production.  

Over his more than 30 years with the UN, McNeill focused on:

Generating Environmental Finance

He was a leader in creating and managing innovative and effective financing mechanisms for the environment (1992-2015). In addition to helping build the GEF, one of the largest environmental funds in the world, he was an early mover in attracting and directing significant climate finance to protecting forests and biodiversity for climate mitigation and adaptation (through payment for ecosystem services approaches like REDD+, nature-based solutions, etc.)

Setting Global Sustainable Development Policy

McNeill provided global leadership in sustainable development policy by successfully advocating for the protection of biodiversity and other environmental services as essential components of any effective poverty reduction strategy and embedding biodiversity conservation into the global development agenda, especially the MDGs and the SDGs (2001-2015). He shaped the global agenda for biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction, environment and development, forests and climate, Indigenous Peoples and biodiversity and climate (2002-2024). From 2003-2007, he was a leader in the influential Poverty Environment Partnership (PEP).

Empowering the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities

Dr. McNeill was a leading advocate in the UN for Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLC) participation in international policy forums and in ensuring the UN prioritizes and invests significantly in building local capacity to give IPLCs access to resources and rights to forest tenure (2003-2025). He created numerous capacity building initiatives in the UN for IPLCs (e.g. Equator Initiative, Community Dialogue spaces, UN-REDD Programme, Community-based REDD+, UNDP corporate focus on on: ‘Scaling Up Local Capacity and Action for the Environment and Sustainable Development’ that enabled IPLC voices to be heard, and reflected, in multilateral policy forums like COPs, UN Climate Summits, MDG and SDG Summits, UNGA, WCC, etc. (2002-2025). From 2009-2015, he was a leading voice in ensuring that the REDD+ mechanism is guided by the needs and concerns of IPLCs by arranging for them to have seats on the governing board of the UN-REDD Programme (2009-2015). McNeill was responsible for developing robust social and environmental safeguards for REDD+ and other financial instruments to protect IPLCs (2009-2015).

 

Dr. McNeill founded and lead catalytic global initiatives including:

  • An international alliance to bring faith-based leadership to local, national and global efforts to end tropical deforestation and to empower indigenous peoples (2017-2025).

  • A global capacity building, knowledge and advocacy effort to foster successful indigenous and local solutions for people, nature and resilient communities, featuring the 'Equator Prize' (2002-2017).

  • Ensured Indigenous Peoples made an unprecedented contribution to the COP 21 Paris Agreement at COP (2013-2016)

  • A multi-agency effort to ensure that REDD mechanisms yield benefits for the rural poor in developing countries (2003-2008)

  • An influential network of development agencies, UN organizations and international NGOs that worked to integrate poverty reduction, environmental sustainability and climate resilience in the global development agenda (2003-2007)

  • A UNDP, Harvard, Swiss Re partnership that engaged major private sector actors in quantifying and mitigating the risks of climate change through high visibility reports, symposia and public events (2003-2006)

  • A major assessment of the human impact on the environment that involved more than 1,360 experts worldwide and assessed the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and provided the scientific basis for action (2002-2006)

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