Ms. Sandra Gómez Paradela joined IDEV in January 2020 to work on its Country Strategy and Program Evaluations. She initially joined the AfDB in September 2019 and was based in Lomé in the Togo Country Office, where she worked within the Private Sector, Infrastructure and Industrialization Complex. During her time in Togo, she assisted in supervising the calls for proposals for infrastructure projects across Togo, Benin, and Burkina Faso.
Prior to joining the AfDB, Ms. Gómez Paradela has been committed to sustainable development and poverty eradication, working in various international organizations as well as public institutions. She was recently involved in a research collaboration between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). As part of this project on “Climate change adaptation in Sub-Saharan Africa”, she conducted her Master’s thesis on “Linking climate conditions and childhood diarrhea in Burundi refugee camps”. Previously, she worked in the Logistics Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva, Switzerland, developing technical specifications for water-supply equipment to be used in emergency situations and armed conflict areas. Furthermore, she worked as a teaching assistant on the Energy Conversion and Renewable Energy Master’s course at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne).
Before moving to Switzerland, Ms. Gómez Paradela worked at the Spanish Institute of Engineering in Madrid, Spain, where she conducted research about civil engineering companies interested in projects funded by Multilateral Development Banks. She also worked as a trainee engineer for the Metropolitan Transport Authority of Barcelona (ATM) where she focused on transport management and conducted technical research about electric bus infrastructure. Finally, while pursuing her Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, she spent one year in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she worked at TECHO (TETO Brasil), a leading NGO fighting extreme poverty in Latin America. At TECHO, she assisted in providing technical support for large-scale construction projects for people living in favelas (slums).
Ms. Gómez Paradela holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of A Coruña (Universidade da Coruña), a Master of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering as well as a Master in Infrastructure Management from Barcelona Tech (Universitat Politècnica de Catalonia) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne). She also holds a postgraduate degree in International Economics and Foreign Trade from the University of Barcelona (Universitat de Barcelona).