Marcia Brewster
President, UNA-Westchester (NY), Regional Representative UNA-USA National Council, United Nations Association of the USA Marcia Brewster had a long career at the UN as a Senior Officer for Water Resources and Task Manager of the Interagency Gender/Water Task Force. After retirement she worked as a consultant on: gender evaluations of UN Agencies, great rivers, water and green growth and riverfront revitalization.
About this speaker
Marcia Brewster is currently President of the United Nations Association (UNA-USA), Westchester (NY) chapter and has served on the UNA-USA National Council since 2018. She worked for the United Nations for over 30 years, both in New York and at the regional UN office for Asia and the Pacific, based in Bangkok, Thailand. She devoted most of her career to United Nations programs related to water and sanitation, sustainable development and gender issues. Until 2006 she was Senior Officer for water resources in the Sustainable Development Division at United Nations headquarters in New York. She served as Manager of the UN’s Interagency Task Force on Gender and Water and is deeply concerned about women’s empowerment and gender equality. She was also Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Natural Resources Forum for 11 years, and has a number of published research studies and policy papers for the UN. She has made frequent public speaking presentations on topics including water and sanitation, gender issues and international careers.
Since her retirement from the UN, and until 2019, she worked as an independent consultant with Nautilus International Development Consulting when she was part of a team working on waterfront revitalization in the Hudson Valley. She earlier completed case studies for the World Water Council's Water and Green Growth (WGG) project. She has undertaken gender evaluations of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, of UNDP's Small Grants Program and the World Bank's Global Environment Facility. She has also done projects with Nature Conservancy's Great Rivers Partnership and has organized gender and water workshops in Asia and Europe.
Marcia serves on a number of executive and advisory boards, including the Advisory Board to the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Mercy College, the League of Women Voters of Westchester County, the Water Discovery Center in Upstate NY and the Town of Greenburgh Water Advisory Board. She has an MSc from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and spent 14 years living and working in Asia. She lives in Hastings on Hudson, NY and has twin sons.