Dr. Francesca Greco

Dr. Francesca Greco is an international expert in hydropolitics, virtual water, water footprint, and gender and water, with over 20 years of experience spanning the United Nations, academia, and international research institutions. She served as Gender and Water Officer at UNESCO’s World Water Assessment Programme (2011–2017), where she coordinated and designed the first edition of the UNESCO toolkit for sex-disaggregated water indicators now integrated into SDG 6. She was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow in 2023 at the University of Bergamo, Italy, about water footprint in Italy. She holds a PhD in Water and Food Policy from King’s College London, a Master in Development Studies (SOAS London) and graduated from Bologna (Forlì) in Diplomatic Studies and International Relations. She is the co-author of the book The Water We Eat (Springer 2015) and author of In difesa dell’acqua (Intermezzi Editore 2026). A founding member of the Tony Allan Society, she brings a combination of UN-level operational experience, peer-reviewed research on hydro-hegemony and water justice, and policy engagement at global forums — including the World Water Forum, World Water Week, and COP21 — to her attempt to communicate science through infographics and geo-spatial analysis. Her last chapter on the role of women in water diplomacy has been just published in the latest Routledge Handbook of Water Diplomacy. She is currently a visiting researcher at King’s Water Centre in the Geography Department of King’s College London, UK.