Esteban Felipe De La Torre

As a Border Management Regional Coordinator (policy/outreach), I ensure that countries in Southeast Asia advance their border governance agendas in line with the new standards set during the 2021 ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime. I am responsible for the organization of high-level dialogues on border policy and consultations of the Border Liaison Offices (BLOs) network. With more than 120 BLOs in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, this network is one of the world’s largest intra-regional law enforcement cooperation mechanisms.

I am a lawyer and attorney-at-law from Ecuador with a master’s degree in Public Administration. I come with an extensive, diverse and rewarding 20 years’ professional experience in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. I have advised governments of more than 30 countries on the formulation and implementation of public policies, laws and regulations, capacity building programs and research projects around cross-border issues (trafficking in persons, smuggling of migrants, border communities) and gender (women in law enforcement, gender-based violence). Along my career, I have been the driving force behind the negotiation of funding agreements that have generated the UNODC an estimate of USD 25 million.

I am a skillful facilitator and powerful communicator with ample hands on experience organizing major international conferences and steering the production of influential public information campaigns. The Blue Heart against human trafficking I spearheaded in Mexico and Spain in 2010 became one of the United Nations´ most visible and global products, expanding to 40 countries. Its #AQUIESTOY version, which relaunch I led in 2017, achieved 107 million impressions in digital and traditional media in Latin America. Between June and October 2022, “Help is available for you”, another campaign I coordinated in Cambodia against gender-based violence, beat a record of 26 million impressions, 8.8m million views and 638k engagements.

In May 2023 I was elected staff representative to the 1st Session of the Staff Council of the UNOV/UNODC Staff Union, and since its establishment in January 2022, I am a member of the UNODC anti-racism working group. Before joining the UN I worked in the General Consulate of Ecuador in Madrid. The projects I have been involved, as a team member or as the head of the team, contributed to positive changes in the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens by means of a new law, a thoughtful campaign or a well-trained law enforcement officer.