Eugene Zapata Garesché holds a degree in International Relations from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, a Master’s degree in European Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Master’s degree in International Cooperation and Development from Sorbonne University in Paris.
For more than 20 years, he has devoted his professional career to the international relations of cities and local governments. From 2009 to 2016, he served as International Affairs Adviser to the Mayor of Mexico City. Alongside this role, he was Regional Secretary for North America at Metropolis, the global network of major cities and metropolitan areas, and Regional Director for Latin America at the Global Fund for Cities Development (FMDV). From 2012 to 2016, he coordinated the Euro-Latin American Alliance for Cooperation among Cities (the AL-LAs Project), funded by the European Union.
He is the author of numerous articles and specialised books on international cooperation, including the Manual for the Internationalisation of Cities, published in Spanish, French and English and adapted into Portuguese. In August 2013, CAF—Development Bank of Latin America—selected him as one of its 30 “Leaders for the Future of Latin America.” In 2015, he was appointed a Knight of the National Order of Merit of the French Republic. Since 2019, he has served on the Editorial Board of Americas Quarterly, the journal of the Council of the Americas/Americas Society.
From 2016 to 2023, Eugene Zapata Garesché served as Global Director of Strategic Partnerships and Head of the Latin America and Caribbean Office at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Global Resilient Cities Network. Since January 2023, he has worked for the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) as Team Leader of the expert team supporting the TALD Instrument (Territorial Approach to Local Development), within Unit G2—Local Authorities, Civil Society Organisations and Foundations—of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA). In 2022, he joined the Board of Directors of the Tinker Foundation.
