Beatriz (Bea) Sanz-Corella is an international expert in democratic governance, citizen participation, civil society, and evaluation, with nearly thirty years of professional experience across more than 80 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the Mediterranean.
Throughout her career, she has worked with the European Union, the United Nations, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, bilateral development agencies, philanthropic institutions, national and local governments, and a wide range of civil society organizations.
Between 2009 and 2014, she led the European Union’s technical assistance to the Structured Dialogue process with civil society and local authorities, contributed to the establishment of the Policy Forum on Development, and participated in the consultation process that led to the European Commission’s 2012 Communication on engagement with civil society. She subsequently directed the EU Global Roadmaps Mechanism for Engagement with Civil Society for more than seven years, providing support to over 100 European Union Delegations worldwide.
Her expertise combines research, public policy design, multi-stakeholder dialogue facilitation, institutional strengthening, evaluation, and organizational learning. She has led numerous complex evaluations and strategic studies on citizen participation, civic space, democratic governance, territorial development, philanthropy, gender equality, youth, and accountability.
She currently advises international institutions and foundations on strategies and programmes related to civil society, civic space, gender equality and social inclusion, youth, Global Gateway, social innovation, decentralized cooperation, and new partnerships between philanthropy, the public sector, and local actors.
Bea is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA). She holds a Master’s degree in Development Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Business Administration from ESADE, and a Bachelor’s degree in Social Anthropology. She is currently a PhD candidate in Economics at the Open University, where her research focuses on the role of philanthropy in supporting social movements and grassroots activists.
She is trilingual in Spanish, English, and French, and also has professional working proficiency in Portuguese and Indonesian.
