Ambassador Melba Pria

HE Melba Pria was Ambassador of Mexico to India from 2015 to 2018 and to Indonesia from 2007 to March 2015. She was born in Mexico City. Holds a Bachelor Degree in Sociology, two Masters Degrees in Public Policy and International Studies and a Post Graduate in National Security and Strategic Studies. She has studied both in Mexico and abroad. She also has to her credits several books and publications on issues of diversity and public policy.

In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she has worked in areas that promote the inclusion of different stakeholders in international affairs. As Head of Public Diplomacy, was responsible for the development of the Ministry’s relationship with civil society in Mexico and abroad. As Director General for Mexican Diaspora; she dealt with issues relating to rights in their countries of reception and the resulting matters of domestic public policy. She was liaison at the State and Federal levels for the coordination and support of local, State and Federal officials in International Affairs. Prior to the above roles with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she was political and consular attaché at the Mexican Embassy in Israel and later advisor to the Foreign Minister.

A professional public servant who has served Mexico’s public and private sectors for 40 years, the main themes of her work are embracing political and developmental objectives that focus on and address issues relating to poverty, identity and tolerance, marginalized and ethnically-differentiated communities.

From 1998 to 2000, she was Head of the Mexican National Institute for Indigenous Affairs, was elected Vice President of the Latin American and Caribbean Indigenous Peoples’ Fund, and in both capacities worked to ensure that the indigenous population had access to the State’s jurisdiction, programs, and budgets and to international cooperation. She was also the Director in the Education Ministry’s special delegation to the State of Chiapas, promoting interdisciplinary programs for that State’s indigenous children, work which contributed to an improvement in the levels of instruction and an undertaking to provide special programs for the expansion of educational services in the entire state. Before, she worked at the social Security Institute of Mexico, planning, and delivering programs that directly benefited the working.