Umut Ergezer

Deputy Secretary General, Regional Cooperation Council

UMUT ERGEZER, currently holding a position of Deputy Secretary General of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC), joined the Secretariat in 2020 and lead the preparation and coordination of the South East Europe (SEE) 2030 Strategy. Mr. Ergezer, a graduate of Political Science and Economics, worked for more than 20 years in several international public organizations including the European Commission, and the United Nations. Mr. Ergezer contributed to the drafting of the SEE 2020 Strategy (the regional strategy for the Western Balkans and Croatia implemented by the RCC before the adoption of SEE2030) and the Multi-Annual Action Plan for the Regional Economic Area in Western Balkans. He worked for the CEFTA Secretariat between 2011 and 2018 and served as Acting Director of the CEFTA Secretariat between September 2015 and May 2017. After his mandate in CEFTA in 2018, he worked for the UNDP as a senior expert on aid for trade in the Middle East and North Africa during which he designed a program for utilizing trade facilitation-related instruments to promote economic development and job creation in the economies hosting refugees in MENA. During that period, he was also involved in short-term consultancy missions in the Western Balkans, Hong Kong – China, and Saudi Arabia. Before he joined the RCC Secretariat in January 2020, he worked as Director of Aid Efficiency and International Cooperation of the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Türkiye.