Board Member LDnet
e-mail: maria.rauch@mnet-online.de
Maria João is an diplom-Engineer that worked for the Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity in Portugal and now is registered as an independent consultant. She is a qualified programs and projects evaluator with more than 30 years of experience as well as a local development expert working on a perspective of integrated socio-economic development. In this field has special relevance the labour market and the social policies. She gained her vast experience in this field through her extensive work on international projects, on IPA technical assistance projects to countries in pre accession phase (Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Turkey) as well as during her employment at the Portuguese public employment service and at the city of Munich Department for Labour Market and economy. For 3 years she has worked as policy advisor of the Minister of Family and Social Solidarity and of the President of Malta.
Since 2023 she works for CEiiA as the Manager of the Sustainable Development Solutions network (SDSN Portugal) in Portugal. This is a network of knowledge producers (universities and Research centers with more than 2000 members around the world and it aims to bridge the gap between the knowledge and the practice to foster the acceleration of the SDG implementation. Sustainability across all the 17 SDG are in the core of SDSN Portugal work.
SDSN Portugal is one of the 58 national and regional networks that integrate the UN SDSN Global Networkwas which Mission is to mobilize scientific and technological knowledge to promote practical solutions supporting the SDG and Paris Agreement implementation.
This mission is to be accomplished by:
-Developing innovative dialogue models involving all knowledge institutions (Universities, Polytechnics, Laboratories, Research Centers and other), the different levels of policy makers, the companies dedicated non-profit organizations;
– Promoting solutions to serve the implementation of the SDG through the mobilization of the scientific and multidisciplinary knowledge that enables the generation of integrated policies, systemic transformations and evidence and scientific based solutions;
– Contributing to the decision taking processes demonstrating the adequacy of the solutions to the different policy decision makers within the public, private and society spheres.