Project Director: Stephen Browne

email: browne@futureun.org

Stephen Browne is Fellow of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and Director of the project. He worked for more than 30 years in different organisations of the UN development system, sharing his time almost equally between agency headquarters and country assignments in three different developing regions. In the 1970s he worked as an economic researcher in Thailand. In the 1980s, he was the humanitarian coordinator in Somalia. In the 1990s, he was the UN Representative, first in newly-independent Ukraine during its early transition, and then in Rwanda during a period of post-conflict reconstruction.

More recently he was convenor of the UN system poverty task-force, and focal point in UNDP, New York, for poverty and social policy, finance for development and capacity development.  His last UN job was Deputy Executive Director of the International Trade Centre in Geneva, the city where he now resides.

He was trained as an economist at Cambridge and Paris Universities and worked as an economic consultant in London before joining the UN. He has researched, written and published books and articles on aid and development throughout his career. His books include The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (Routledge, 2012), The UN Development Programme and System (Routledge, 2011), The International Trade Centre (Routledge, 2011), Aid and Influence (2006, London, Earthscan), Developing Capacity through Technical Cooperation: country experiences (2002, London, Earthscan) (Editor); Beyond Aid: from Patronage to Partnership (1999, London, Ashgate Publishing); Development Challenges in Asia and the Pacific in the 1980s, (1991, Honolulu, East-West Center) (Co-editor), and Foreign Aid in Practice (1990, London, Pinter Publishers & New York, NY University Press).

 Co-Director: Thomas G. Weiss

email: TWeiss@gc.cuny.edu

Thomas G. Weiss is Presidential Professor of Political Science at The CUNY Graduate Center and Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. He directed the United Nations Intellectual History Project (1999-2010) and was President of the International Studies Association (2009-10), Chair of the Academic Council on the UN System (2006-9), editor of Global Governance, Research Director of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, Research Professor at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies, Executive Director of the Academic Council on the UN System and of the International Peace Academy, a member of the UN secretariat, and a consultant to several public and private agencies.

He has authored or edited some 45 books and 185 articles and book chapters about multilateral approaches to international peace and security, humanitarian action, and sustainable development. His latest authored volumes are: Humanitarianism Intervention: Ideas in Action (2012); What’s Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix It (2012); Thinking about Global Governance, Why People and Ideas Matter (2011); Humanitarianism Contested: Where Angels Fear to Tread (2011); Global Governance and the UN: An Unfinished Journey (2010); and UN Ideas That Changed the World (2009).

 Associate Director: Vikas Nath

email: vikas.nath@gmail.com

Vikas Nath has over 15 years of experience in various UN, national and international organisations in Geneva, New York and India. He previously held the position of Head – Media and Communication, South Centre (a Geneva-based intergovernmental organisation). Prior to it, Mr. Nath worked as Policy Analyst with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) headquarters in New York where he carried out research on provisioning and financing of public goods including Internet and the Global Communications Network, and set up the Global Public Goods Network. Mr. Nath also worked with the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, as a Training Adviser on Agenda 21 and Environment and Sustainable development issues.

He is the founder of multiple companies and initiatives, including INSouth.org, DevNetJobs.org, DigitalGovernance.org,  gpgNet.net, GenevaJobs.org, and DevNetJobsIndia.org. He has worked in over 55 countries on a range of projects on application of information technology in agriculture, small and medium enterprises, public sector reforms, good governance, e-governance and rural development. He is also the International Chair (Agriculture Commission) for the World Information Technology Forum (WITFOR).

He is an Inlaks Scholar (2000-1), London School of Economics, UK and holds masters degree in Environment and Development from the London School of Economics (UK) and in Natural Resources Management from the Indian Institute of Forest Management (India). www.VikasNath.org