Irina Bacci is a Technical Director for PADF in Brazil. Bacci is a highly experienced development professional with over 10 years of experience directing and providing strategic oversight and program management to development projects for vulnerable populations in Brazil. She has extensive experience leading human rights programming within the Brazilian national government, United Nations agencies, and the nonprofit sector. Bacci is an expert in child protection and child rights, combating gender-based violence, public security, advocating for LGBTQIA+ rights, and preventing forced displacement of communities in Latin America. She specializes in research, capacity building, policy, and agenda setting within the human rights sphere in Brazil.
Most recently, Bacci served as the PADF Program Manager in Boa Vista, Brazil, under a State Department-funded program where she coordinated and implemented a humanitarian assistance program targeting vulnerable migrant communities suffering from forced labor, gender-based, and refugee violence. Previously, she was a Program Officer at the United Nations Population Fund where she coordinated and implemented a humanitarian assistance program in collaboration with Brazilian executive, legislative, and judicial authorities. She also served as the General Coordinator and then the Director of the National Human Rights Ombudsman Department under the Secretariat of Human Rights of the Presidency of Brazil. She led the coordination of the government of Brazil’s Federal Human Rights Dial service hotline for reporting human rights and labor rights violations. She also directed coordination of government efforts to protect children and adolescents in major events such as the Confederation Cup, the World Games of Indigenous Peoples, and the Olympics.
Bacci is also a recognized expert on the coordination of mediation of land and agrarian conflicts, especially relating to indigenous lands. Bacci has strong team leadership and management abilities and is highly skilled in program execution, including developing strategies and carrying out advocacy in Brazil. She holds a master’s degree in human rights and citizenship from the University of Brasilia and is a native Portuguese speaker with fluency in Spanish.
