Katharina Pröstler

Ms. Katharina Pröstler is Gender, Environmental and Social Safeguards Specialist, as well as Gender and Youth focal point in the Department of Energy at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and responsible for promoting gender equality and the empowerment of youth and women, as well as for ensuring compliance with social and environmental safeguards of sustainable energy, climate change mitigation and adaptation projects. Her current focus is on catalysing action to enhance gender equality and women’s empowerment for a just, inclusive and equitable energy transition.

She has more than 11 years of professional experience as a project manager and in promoting sustainable and inclusive development, in particular climate change mitigation and adaptation. Katharina has worked in the private, public and academic sector and at UNIDO she implemented projects in the area of clean-tech innovation entrepreneurship and sustainable energy technologies in Thailand, in Lao PDR, in Cambodia, and in Vietnam.

Katharina has a Masters’s Degree in Business Administration and Law, as well as a MSc in Environmental Technologies and International Affairs. Moreover, she has studied, lived and worked in many countries, including Austria, Belgium, Cambodia, Ecuador, England, Germany, Laos PDR, Spain, and Thailand. She also acts as mentor for women and youth supporting the Global Women’s Network for the Energy Transition (GNWET) and the SDG7 Youth Constituency.