Luis Castellar Maymo is a professional with 22 years of experience in cooperation projects for democratic governance, especially in conflict and post-conflict contexts. He has a degree in Law and a postgraduate degree in International Affairs. He is fluent in Spanish, Catalan, English, French and Italian.
Luis is a specialist in project management and has been involved in all phases of the project management cycle, both from the perspective of the donor and the implementing partner. He is familiar with the regulations and management systems of the EU, the UN and USAID, as well as with programming cycles and implementation modalities. Luis was task manager for good governance at the EU delegations in Afghanistan and Kosovo, responsible for the operational management and monitoring of EU funding for various grants and contribution agreements for good governance, and focal point for FPI interventions, EIDHR thematic programmes and CSO-LA and gender issues.  He has solid experience in working with CSOs, managing grants and facilitating participatory consultation processes with CSOs, managing EU grant programmes for Latin American CSOs and other civil society grant programmes, designing calls for proposals, conducting ex ante evaluations and monitoring, facilitating several EU roadmaps for CSOs and co-authoring two EC publications on CSOs.  He also has solid experience in human rights and peacebuilding, specifically in political dialogue and human rights advocacy, including as technical secretariat for two UN tripartite human rights processes.
Recently, Luis has provided external technical advice on more than 50 missions in support of DGs INTPA, NEAR, FPI and EU Delegations as a PCM/ROM/SDL specialist through various EC aid mechanisms and expert rosters (ROM, SDL, RoadMap, CSOF, REA, EU EOM), formulating interventions and logical frameworks, evaluating proposals for calls for proposals, managing ODA knowledge, conducting third-party monitoring (ROM reviews) and three EU impact assessments.
Luis has extensive experience working in diverse cultural and political contexts. He has worked in Afghanistan, Bolivia, Colombia, East Timor, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Israel, Kosovo, Lebanon, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nepal, the Philippines, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Yemen, and has provided support from home to the EUD in several other countries.
Luis's experience includes 23 election missions since 2004, as an observer in EU EOMs and providing technical assistance as a senior election expert for the UN, USAID and CEAE. His particular passion is improving the capacity of EMBs based on values and enhancing the sustainability and integrity of electoral processes.
Luis has coordinated an election-related intervention, funded by the FPI and implemented by the EAC, in Afghanistan, and has contributed his technical expertise to activities in several EAC projects around the world.