Mohseen Riaz-Ud-Dean (PhD) brings over 18 years of experience working at the intersections of environmental management, climate resilience, and sustainable development across the Pacific region. One of his most impactful roles was assisting the Government of Fiji through the early Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN), where he supported national biodiversity finance assessments, and thereafter helped develop and shape innovative funding models and solutions like Payment for Ecosystem Services, Green Bonds, Environmental and Climate Adaptation Levy, among others. These efforts continuously align with Fiji’s national and global environmental goals, leading to key policy shifts and increased interests in nature-positive investments.
Before joining the new role of Environmental Finance Specialist for the Pacific Region, Mohseen served as Programme Analyst – Resilience and Climate Change at the UNDP Pacific Multi-Country Office (MCO) in Fiji, where he was responsible for programming as well as project implementation in a multi-country office context. He managed and supported multi-million-dollar vertically funded (GEF, SCCF, GCF) as well as bilateral donor-funded projects across the ten Pacific Island countries: Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Republic of Marshall Islands, Palau, and Tonga. In addition, during his tenure as Head of Community Research and Ethnographic Solutions Mapping with the UNDP Accelerator Lab in Fiji, he has on various occasions collaborated with the UNDP Samoa MCO, Papua New Guinea, and Timor Leste UNDP Country Offices.
Mohseen also brings nine plus years of experience in academia, having taught and conducted research in several countries in the Pacific, including in India, the USA, New Zealand, Japan, Cambodia, South Korea, Malaysia, Kenya, among others. He has experience working in the private and the public sector as well, where he mainly supported policy development, capacity-building, and the integration of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles, Green Productivity, ISO14001: Environmental Management Systems standards, and Environmental Management Accounting (EMA), to align sustainability with business strategy and accountability.
Academically, Mohseen holds a PhD in Environment and Development Anthropology. His thesis arguments were grounded using Agroecology- the theoretical paradigm embedding and offering nature beneficial solutions, as opposed to industrial agricultural systems, and specifically focused on legislative reforms, and indigenous technical knowledge for agronomic biodiversity management and conservation to restore Fiji’s (declining) sugar industry. He additionally holds a Master of International Relations and Diplomacy, a Master of Environmental Sciences, a postgraduate qualification in tertiary teaching, and a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science.