Enrique Maldonado is an economist with over twelve years of experience specializing in social and fiscal policy, with a particular focus on public finance and social spending across Latin America. He has worked across eleven countries supporting analysis and advocacy related to financing children’s rights and social protection. Enrique co-founded the Data Laboratory and has supported the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva, contributing to the development of General Comment No. 19 on public spending for the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
From 2010 to 2017, Enrique served as a Senior Economist at the Central American Institute of Fiscal Studies (ICEFI), where he coordinated research on public budgets and human rights in Central and South America. Since 2018, he has worked as an independent consultant on food security, migration, and project evaluations for a range of organizations. With Maestral International, he has contributed to consulting teams supporting work on financing children’s rights in Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and Colombia. Enrique holds a master’s degree in Children’s Needs and Rights from the Autonomous University of Madrid, a master’s in Development from Universidad del Valle of Guatemala, postgraduate training in international migration and social project evaluation, and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of San Carlos of Guatemala. He is based in Guatemala.