Julio López Peña is an Ecuadorian economist with more than 8 years of experience on projects and grants management, research and capacity building initiatives on public policy, sustainable development and information systems in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). He has worked with more than 20 civil society organisations and provided technical assistance to over 20 governments in the region.

He is co-founder of Datalat, an Ecuadorian organisation to shifting entrepreneurs, governments, NGOs and journalists to a new, more innovative and collaborative approach in the use of open data to bring solutions to social issues. He has been part of research teams for the Open Budget Index, the Resources Governance Index and the Open Data Barometer. He is one of the 2015 Class of School of Data Fellows, where he carried out data-driven projects and onsite and online trainings to create capacities on open data and data analysis to journalists, civil society groups and government agencies in Latin America.

He is currently Grupo FARO´s Sustainable Development and Cities Program Coordinator. The program includes research and capacity building projects on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), natural resources management, cities and urban sustainable development and climate change. The program is currently promoting initiatives to monitor and generate capacities related to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in Ecuador. The “ODS Territorio Ecuador” project seeks to contribute to the implementation of the SDGs through the generation of participatory and multi-sector dialogue spaces and the implementation of data observatories to generate and monitor SDGs indicators.

Julio previously worked as project manager for the Energy Division at the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), where he managed technical cooperations for the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative (SEforALL) Incitative and the SDG 7 on energy access, energy efficiency and renewable energy in Latin America and the Caribbean. He was the Energy Information Specialist for the Caribbean subregion at the Latin American Energy Organisation (OLADE), where he led capacity building activities, and developed energy statistics reports as well as energy information systems for governments in this subregion.

Julio holds a BA in Economics from the Catholic University of Ecuador, and an MSc in Energy and Resources Management from the University College London (UCL).