Regional Director for Central America, North America and the Caribbean

Diego Beltrand, Special Envoy of the Director General of IOM for the Regional Response to the Venezuela Situation and Regional Director (a.i.) for Central America, North America and the Caribbean for the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1963. He has a professional background in Law, with a Law Degree from the University of the Republic, a master's degree in International Relations from the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) in Nicaragua and a master's degree in International Negotiations and Policy Formulation from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (HEI) in Geneva, Switzerland.

With more than 30 years of experience in the international field, he has led technical cooperation programmes and projects on migration management and governance, with a focus on public policies regarding the human rights of migrants. He has also held responsibilities in humanitarian assistance and reconstruction programmes in emergency situations in cases of conflicts and natural disasters.

He worked for 7 years for the Organisation of American States (OAS) in Nicaragua. He subsequently joined the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in 1997. Since then, he has held various functions in Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, Switzerland, Argentina and Panama.

From October 2012 to October 2019, Diego Beltrand was Regional Director of IOM's Office for South America, supporting and guiding the Organization's activities in Argentina, Bolivia, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Under this mandate, he also served as the Technical Secretariat of the South American Conference on Migration (CSM).

Since November 2019, he has been serving as the IOM Director General's Special Envoy for the Regional Response to the Situation in Venezuela, based in Panama City. He is responsible for maintaining the political liaison, implementation and monitoring of the response and fundraising within the framework of the Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan, as well as IOM's response to the crisis in Venezuela. He also co-leads the Regional Inter-Agency Platform for Refugees and Migrants in Venezuela (R4V) with his counterpart from UNHCR.

Since February 2024 Mr. Beltrand has been IOM Regional Director (a.i.) for Central America, North America and the Caribbean. In this position he coordinates IOM's strategies and activities in the region while establishing and maintaining partnerships with governments, development partners and civil society. He also provides technical support to governments to develop national migration frameworks and strengthen migration management systems. He also works with the Regional Conference on Migration (RCM) and other relevant sub-regional and regional processes.