Biljana Kilibarda

Biljana Kilibarda holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Montenegro in Podgorica, with additional studies at the Faculties of Economics in Prague and Ljubljana. She works at the Department for International Cooperation of the Institute of Hydrometeorology and Seismology of Montenegro, focusing on international projects in water quality, hydrology and climate change. Since 2017 she has served as UNCCD National Focal Point and has been engaged in reporting processes in 2018 and 2022–2023, the development of the National Drought Plan and participation in the LDN TSP and LDN TPP processes.

From 2018 to 2021 she was Deputy Director of the Sector for Hydrology, Water and Air Quality at the Institute of Hydrometeorology and Seismology. Earlier she worked as an adviser in the Directorate for Environment within the Ministry of Ecology, Spatial Planning and Urbanism and as an assistant in International Economy at the Faculty of Economics in Podgorica.

Between 2022 and 2024 she served as Chair of the CRIC and was concurrently a member of the COP Bureau. During this period she was also part of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the mid-term evaluation of the 2018–2030 UNCCD Strategic Framework. She is currently Co-Chair of the Community of Learning and Practice on Drought Management for Central and Eastern Europe. Most recently, under the project Implementation of UNCCD COP Decisions on Droughtimplemented by the Ministry of Ecology in cooperation with FAO, she co-authored the revised National Drought Plan for Montenegro and authored the Study on Financial Instruments and Modalities to Improve Drought Resilience in Montenegro.