Growing up in a developing country and witnessing poverty first hand, Eunice Heredia-Ortiz always knew she wanted to help people get on the path to prosperity. Specializing in public finance, Eunice has helped governments in many countries transform their fiscal policy and management, laying the foundations for more efficient and accountable use of public resources, better public service delivery, and improved living standards.

“Children with no clothes, no shoes, bad nutrition, and no schools … how do we empower them to have a better life? I want to dedicate my life to empowering people to prosper.”—Eunice Heredia-Ortiz

Eunice’s expertise includes improving fiscal (tax and expenditure) policy and administration, public budgeting and expenditure management, domestic resource mobilization (DRM), public financial management (PFM), fiscal decentralization, fiscal transparency and accountability, gender and social inclusion in PFM, change management, and digital government initiatives for PFM. At Georgia State University (GSU), she authored articles and reports on fiscal policy, tax policy, public budgeting, fiscal decentralization, education financing, and poverty reduction. She also served as a capacity-building expert for civil servants, designing curricula, delivering lectures and technical assistance, and managing the technical and administrative delivery of capacity-building programs, including GSU’s renowned Annual Public Policy Training Programs on fiscal decentralization and local governance; education policy and development; tax policy, fiscal analysis and revenue forecasting; public budgeting and fiscal management; and macroeconomic policies for economic growth.

At DAI, Eunice has helped lead U.S. Agency for International Development-funded fiscal reform projects in Bangladesh, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jordan, Liberia, Maldives, and Zambia. A few examples of her latest contributions: supporting the design and implementation of a digital taxpayer registry in Guatemala; estimating the impact of introducing a value-added tax in Liberia; improving transparency and accountability in Bangladesh by helping parliamentarians analyze and monitor the preparation and implementation of the national budget; enhancing public expenditure management and results-orientation in public spending in El Salvador; and identifying tax expenditures and advancing property taxation in Jordan.

• Adjunct professor, Georgia State University
• Ph.D., economics, Georgia State University
• 2020 Sheth International Alumni Award For Exceptional Achievement
• Certificate, Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool
• Board Member, International Consortium on Government Financial Management (2020-21)