Ioana Cosma has served as the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) country director in North Macedonia since December 2015. She has extensive experience in all phases of the program management cycle and managed multiple democratic governances and electoral projects and programs in the Balkans. During her time with IFES in North Macedonia, she has led IFES’s support during and between the preparations for the 2016 early parliamentary elections, 2017 local elections, 2018 referendum, and 2019 presidential election. She has worked with a wide variety of stakeholders, including government at the central and local levels, donor agencies, international organizations, and domestic partners.
Cosma’s areas of expertise include program development and management, capacity building, institutional development, and electoral reform. In 2010, she joined the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Mission to Skopje as a democratization and election officer and later served as chief of the Democratic Governance Unit and then head of the Human Dimension Department. Before that, Cosma worked with the OSCE in Kosovo as a program officer in the Elections Department in 2001 and 2002 and then in the Democratization Department and Head of Mission’s Office from 2002-08. She has also served as an election adviser for IFES, providing assistance to the Central Election Commission of Kosovo’s Counting and Results Center.
Cosma holds bachelor’s degrees in economics and European studies from Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania.