Ms. Elena Abbati, an Italian national, has been serving as the Representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Brazil since January 2020.
Abbati has over 23 years of international professional experience across West, Central, and East Africa, the Middle East, Western and Eastern Europe, Asia, and four years in Latin America.
She has been with UNODC since 2014 and previously held the position of Chief of the Organized Crime and Illicit Trafficking Section at the UNODC Regional Office for West and Central Africa in Senegal, which covers 22 countries, providing assistance to national priorities and promoting international cooperation. Abbati managed a broad portfolio of programs addressing drug trafficking, organized crime, maritime crime, human trafficking, and money laundering in complex and challenging contexts.
Prior to this, she coordinated one of UNODC’s major global programs, AIRCOP, which aims to strengthen the capabilities of international airports in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Europe to detect and intercept drugs, other illicit goods, and high-risk passengers. In this role, she fostered international police cooperation, resulting in the agreement between the Federal Police’s INTERCOPS Program and the AIRCOP project, implemented by UNODC in partnership with INTERPOL and the World Customs Organization (WCO).
Before joining UNODC, Abbati was actively involved in international diplomacy and peacebuilding with the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS) and the Cameroon-Nigeria Mixed Commission for Border Demarcation and Peace Promotion. She had previously worked with the European Commission’s Foreign Relations Instruments Service and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, serving in various countries across four continents.
Abbati holds a Master’s Degree in Political Science from the Free International University of Social Studies Guido Carli (L.U.I.S.S.) in Rome, Italy, and speaks Portuguese, English, French, Spanish, and Italian.
