Human Development
Petra Kežman
Deputy Secretary General for Human Development at the Union for the Mediterranean since March 2026
Petra Kežman is Deputy Secretary General for Human Development at the Union for the Mediterranean since March 2026.
Full bio
She is a Slovenian career diplomat and policy expert with over two decades of service in foreign relations. She graduated from the University of Ljubljana and holds a Master’s degree in Interdisciplinary European Studies from the College of Europe, with a focus on Europe as a regional actor. Regional multilateral cooperation has been at the core of her foreign policy work ever since.
She brings to her current position a decade-long engagement with and within the Union for the Mediterranean. She has twice served as Slovenia’s Senior Official to the UfM (2016-2018, 2022), actively contributing to strategic coordination, policy dialogue and the advancement of regional initiatives. Prior to her appointment as Deputy Secretary General, she served as Senior Advisor for Higher Education and Research at the UfM Secretariat, where she worked to strengthen Euro-Mediterranean cooperation in higher education, research and innovation.
Throughout her diplomatic career, she has demonstrated a consistent dedication to human development and environmental protection. Across all her assignments – from the Office of the Prime Minister to the Embassies of Slovenia in Paris and Buenos Aires, as well as various departments within the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs – her work has maintained a strong focus on social dialogue, intercultural exchange, academic and research cooperation, and environmental diplomacy.
As Head of the Department for Public Diplomacy and International Relations in Culture (2018 – 2021), and later as Head of the Department for Global Challenges (2022-2024), she made advancing people-centred and planet-focused policies her top priority. In these roles, she actively fostered synergies between gender equality, youth empowerment, environmental protection and the promotion of security and peace, reinforcing the interconnected nature of sustainable development and regional stability.
