Mrs Figuères received her MSc. degree from the Strasbourg National School for Water and Environmental Engineering (ENGEES) in 1985. From 1985 till 2002 she has worked for several French and Dutch consulting companies (she moved to The Netherlands in 1989). Through short missions in developing countries and in Europe, she got insight into the international water and environmental problems. She has broad project experiences as advisor ranging from policy making, project formulation and preparation, master planning, monitoring and evaluation, project development and financing, feasibility studies, supervision of works and institutional strengthening. Between 1996 and 1999 she took the initiative and started the branch office of a Dutch consulting company in France (IWACO-France) and developed the strategy to be followed. From 1999 to 2002 she worked with NEDECO, Netherlands Engineering Consultants, as marketing manager (lobby activities) and water expert. In April 2002 she started working at the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, as head of the department Urban Water and Sanitation. She was a member of the management team and involved in education and capacity building programmes for the water and environmental sectors and carried out many identification, formulation and need assessment missions in several countries.
By January 1st 2008 she became Managing Director of the International institute for Communication and Development (IICD), a Dutch-based non-profit foundation that specialises in information and communication technologies (ICT) as a tool for sustainable development.
