Manuel Rodríguez Pumarol took office as UNICEF's new representative in Venezuela

Caracas, September 3, 2025.- The new Representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Venezuela, Manuel Rodríguez Pumarol, assumed his duties in the country.

Mr. Rodríguez Pumarol, a Dominican national, is a Doctor of Medicine with a postdoctoral degree in Gynecology and Obstetrics and a Diploma in Project Management, Social Protection Networks and Health Systems Management. She has more than 25 years of experience combining managerial and technical leadership at the international level in the design and implementation of social protection and health programs, poverty and equity analysis, as well as the promotion of policies aimed at women and children.

Prior to her appointment in Venezuela, she served as the Resident Representative of the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, in Guatemala, since July 2023.

He joined UNICEF in 2018 as Head of Social Policy and Protection in Jordan, where he led the design and implementation of the National Social Protection Strategy and led humanitarian response programmes to the crisis in Syria in the social protection sector.

Previously, he worked as a senior consultant for the World Bank during the period 2011 to 2017, in the technical design of national social registries, common targeting mechanisms and conditional cash transfer programs in ten countries. From 2009 to 2011 he worked at the Inter-American Development Bank as technical coordinator of the project to support the strengthening of the National Social Protection System in the Dominican Republic. Between 2004 and 2009 he served as director of operations of the solidarity program in the Cabinet of Social Policies of the Dominican Republic, leading the design and implementation of the program.

As part of his professional career, he has participated in and published multiple international research projects in the health and social protection sectors. In the early stage of his career, he served as a professor of embryology at the Faculty of Medicine of the Universidad Iberoamericana in the Dominican Republic and as a gynecologist and obstetrician in clinical practice.

Mr. Rodríguez Pumarol reaffirmed UNICEF's commitment to support the country's efforts to fulfill the rights of all children and adolescents in Venezuela, within the framework of the cooperation program signed with the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.