Dr Stelios Grafakos is a Principal Economist at the Climate Action and Inclusive Development Unit of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI). In his current role, he is leading GGGI’s technical work on supporting member and partner countries to develop their Long-Term Low Emissions Development Strategies (LT-LEDS). Under this workstream, Stelios is providing strategic direction and leadership on conducting low emission pathway analysis and modelling, assessing socio-economic impacts of low carbon development policies and actions, and incorporating climate resilience in LT-LEDS. In addition, Stelios is also responsible for GGGI’s work on the (macro)-economic analysis of green and low carbon growth plans and strategies, with main focus on the assessment of green jobs. Stelios has led several green jobs related studies in Fiji, Mexico, Indonesia and Rwanda.
Prior to GGGI, Stelios was the Head of Environment and Climate Change unit at the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS) at Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) in the Netherlands. He led a number of research, advisory and capacity building projects on climate economics and policy, supporting local and national governments in low- and middle-income countries to develop their low carbon and climate-resilient strategies. Stelios has also extensive lecturing and training experience in the field of climate economics and policy in postgraduate and professional educational programs, including Massive Online Open Courses. Furthermore, he has acted as project coordinator of large research and capacity building projects on climate change and environmental policy issues and led consortia with numerous international partners.

Stelios holds a PhD in integrated assessment of climate actions and decision support from the Erasmus University Rotterdam, a Master’s Degree in Environmental Management and Policy from the University of Amsterdam and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Athens University of Economics and Business. In addition, Stelios has published many peer-reviewed articles in academic journals, books, and international conferences, while he has led and contributed to several GGGI flagship publications.