Carmen Burbano de Lara

During her 14 years of experience with WFP, Carmen Burbano de Lara has specialized in supporting governments to strengthen their national social protection and safety net policies and programmes and to tackle malnutrition and food insecurity. She has held management positions in Peru, Rome, Colombia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and Tanzania; and provided temporary support to earthquake relief efforts in Haiti and Nepal.
Ms. Burbano de Lara is WFP’s world expert in school feeding and a member of the Technical Committee for School Feeding of the Partnership for Child Development at the Imperial College in London. In this capacity, she has advised the governments of China, Colombia and Kenya, Ghana, among others, often in partnership with the World Bank.
She is the co-author of the most influential publications on school feeding over the last ten years including “Re-imagining school feeding: a high return investment on human capital and local economies” (2018); “The School Feeding Sourcebook” (2016); and “Rethinking School Feeding” (2009), published by the World Bank. She has authored WFP’s flagship publication “The State of School Feeding Worldwide” (2013) and conceived and drafted WFP’s Global School Feeding Policy (2013).
Prior to assuming her current position in July 2018, she was WFP’s Representative and Country Director in Peru. She has also worked in UNDP’s Executive Office, providing policy support on social protection to Administrator Helen Clark. Carmen is Ecuadorian and holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Harvard University and Bachelor in Latin-American Studies and Comparative Literature from New York University.