Dr. Margaret Jones Williams is the Deputy Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She is an environmental management scientist with over 30 years of experience working in the public sector, private sector, civil society, academia and multilateral engagements, and internationally with the UNDP in Jamaica, Guyana, Suriname and Laos. Her work with the UNDP has spanned the areas of natural resources management, climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction focusing on policy and programme development and project management. Dr. Jones Williams earned her Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree majoring in Marine Biology with a minor in Chemistry and later her Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) degree in Coastal Zone Management and Zoology, both from The University of the West Indies (UWI). She worked at the Scientific Research Council (SRC) where she was a key member of the team leading the publication of scientific papers from SRC conferences. She then worked as an Ecologist with the Conservation Data Centre, based at The UWI under the Protected Areas Resource Conservation (PARC) Project in Jamaica doing extensive field work across the island and mapping of rare, threatened and endangered species and being a part of the team that established Jamaica’s first national and marine parks. Dr. Jones Williams was then awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship and earned her Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in Environmental Management and Oceanography from the University of Southampton, United Kingdom. On her return to Jamaica she joined Environmental Solutions Ltd. as a consultant ecologist rising to the position of a Principal Director working on the preparation of Environmental Impact Assessments and other studies for development projects, with the aim of making them more environmentally sustainable. During this time she was also involved in the work of several civil society organizations including being President of the Jamaica Institute of Environmental Professionals (JIEP), serving on the Board of the Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park and as Vice Chair of the CITES Scientific Council. After over 10 years with the ESL, she started work with the UNDP as their Environment Unit Manager in Jamaica after which she went on to UNDP in Laos where she was head of Natural Resources, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction Unit and after successful assessment was accepted into the UNDP leadership pool and has served as DRR in Suriname and Saudi Arabia and Head of Office in Guyana.