Gabriella Castellanos

Executive Director
CNA


A lawyer by profession, graduated from the Faculty of Legal and Social Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH). She has studied in Criminal Law, Human Rights, Violence, and Social Coexistence at UNAH, as well as Non-Profit Law and other topics not directly related to transparency, accountability, governance, and institutionalism. Her education includes a specialization course in law: organized crime, corruption, and terrorism, taught by the University of Salamanca, Spain. In December 2021, she was internationally recognized as an "Anti-Corruption Champion" by the United States Department of State.

She is a columnist for the newspaper El Heraldo, where she addresses articles on important topics such as corruption, social inequalities, regional issues, and the rule of law, aiming to raise awareness among the Honduran population. From the civil society perspective, she has extensive experience, serving as the executive director of the National Anticorruption Council (CNA) since December 2013. The CNA is a civil society organization in Honduras dedicated to studying, training, dissuading, denouncing, and combating corruption.

During her tenure, the CNA achieved certification by Counterpart International in organizational development processes, making it the first civil society institution in Latin America to do so. Additionally, the organization obtained certification under the ISO-9001:2015 standard, recognizing the quality and transparency of the implemented system in the provision of services.

From 2014 to the present, 150 complaints have been filed with the justice system, of which 27 cases have been prosecuted by the Public Ministry under her leadership. Under her direction, the Anticorruption Criminal Policy Observatory (OPCA) was established in February 2020. OPCA is a research center aimed at promoting knowledge management across all sectors of the population, through the systematic execution of processes leading to the publication of scientific research with legal, economic, political, and social perspectives, addressing issues of social justice and prevention of the serious violations of society resulting from corruption.