Danae Maniatis is the senior policy and technical advisor for the Climate and Forest Team in the Asia-Pacific and oversees its portfolio in the region. She supports governments in developing and implementing national REDD+ strategies and investment frameworks and leverage climate finance. Currently, her focal countries include Indonesia, Myanmar and Bangladesh. Within the Climate and Forest team, Maniatis also has a global function on technical REDD+ aspects related to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), policy and partnership advice. She manages the partnership her team has with the Italian Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea (IMELS) and leads the upcoming partnership with the European Forest Institute REDD+ and FLEGT facilities. Prior to joining UNDP, she was an independent consultant (from 2014-late 2015) working on REDD+, forest and biodiversity issues with different clients (IGOs, World Bank, NGOs and private sector). Prior to that, she worked for the FAO as a consultant and later forestry officer (2009-2013) focusing on REDD+ measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) as well as the development of a regional MRV project for the 10 Congo Basin countries. She has supported the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in technical support functions for various governments. She is a fellow of the Royal Geographic Society (RGS) and holds a Visiting Research Association with the University of Oxford, where she also did her third MSc (Environmental Change and Management) and PhD (Geography).