Jessica Hidalgo Florindez

Jessica Hidalgo is the Project Director for SPDA Marine Governance’s Por la Pesca project since 2022.

Jessica is a lawyer with a Master’s degree in Intellectual Property and Competition Law from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. She has over 25 years of experience managing forestry and conservation programs, and evaluating environmental policy and regulation, especially in the Amazon region. She has extensive experience leading complex USAID regional projects for regional and bilateral missions in Latin America, including Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. She was Chief of Party (COP) for the USAID Promotion of Best Social and Environmental Management Practices in the Amazon Region Activity, with DT Global from September 2018 to May 2020; and for the USAID Initiative for Conservation in the Andean Amazon (ICAA) Support Unit I and II projects, with International Resources Group (IRG) during 2006-2016.

As COP for USAID’s Amazon Best Management Practices Activity, she led multidisciplinary teams in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru, with project offices in Colombia and Peru, partnering with business associations and private companies, and with indigenous organizations from the local and national levels, and engaging government authorities, to promote the adoption of environmental and social best management practices by extractive activities and infrastructure projects.

As COP for ICAA, she provided overall management and technical direction to two project offices in Ecuador and Peru and local teams in Colombia and Bolivia while ensuring quality performance and effective and integrated implementation in the region and alignment with USAID bilateral missions programming.  She led multidisciplinary teams and established positive relationships with USAID missions and more than 60 local, national, and international conservation organizations, private sector actors, and government stakeholders across the Amazon region to conserve the Amazon biome and managed a $4 million grants program.

Previously, she worked for 18 years at SPDA designing and implementing forestry projects, promoting sustainable forest management, strengthening the country’s forestry institutions, as well as industry and trade projects.

As director of the Por la Pesca project, which aims to reduce illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and promote responsible fishing practices in the artisanal sector in Peru and Ecuador, she leads the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the project, and the alliance formed by The Nature Conservancy (TNC), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP), WildAid, Future of Fish, REDES-SP, Pro Delphinus, and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).