Contact

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 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); Foreign Aid in Practice (1990, London, Pinter Publishers & New York, NY University Press).

He is currently at work on UNDP and the UN Development System (2010, Abingdon, Routledge).

Associate Director (Communication): 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. Until recently, he was the Head – Media and Communication of the Geneva-based intergovernmental organisation “South Centre”. 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. 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 initiatives, including INSouth.org, DigitalGovernance.org and DevNetJobs.org, and has worked in over 40 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 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