Dr. Hans D Orville

Dr. Hans d’Orville

Dr. Hans d’Orville, a German national, has been UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Strategic Planning since October 2007.

Prior to this, he served as Director of the Unit, a position he took up in October 2000. As Assistant Director-General, d’Orville is responsible for the entire program and planning and monitoring of the unit worldwide. This includes being responsible for promoting gender equality and peace and greater dialogue betweendifferent countries, cultures and peoples. He also is the principle UNESCO representative for all matters relating to UN reform and interagency affairs. In addition to this, he directs two successful public-private partnership programmes: the UNESCO/Daimler Mondialogo Project and the UNESCO/SonyEricsson World Tennis Association Partnership for Gender Equality.

D’Orville served as Director of Information Technologies (IT) for Development, in the Bureau for Development Policy of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), from 1996 to 2000. Since 1975, he has held various posts in the United Nations Secretariat and the UNDP, including being Secretary of the UN Committee on Conferences and Senior Officer in the Office of the UNDP Administrator, where he was responsible for the UNDP’s Governing Council. Between 1987 and 1995, he was Executive Coordinator of the InterAction Council of former Heads of State and Government, where he organised a meeting of 30 former world leaders in Shanghai and Beijing, in 1994. He has also served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Africa Leadership Forum; an advisor to the Independent Commission of Population and Quality of Life and the Independent Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development,and Senior Advisor to the ValenciaTercer Milenio Program.

He is a frequent speaker at international conferences in China, including addressing meetings of the Humanity Photo Awards (HPA), the 4th International Symposium on Soft Science, in Beijing in November 2006; theNNPCC 21st Century Forum Conference, in Beijing in 2005; a symposium on long-term planning by the State Committee for Science and Technology, in Beijing in 2003 and at Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, in November 2004.

D’Orville serves on the board of various associations and institutions, among them the Melody for Dialogue among Civilizations Association,Paris/New York.

He is also author of numerous publications on multilateral, UN and UNESCO relations and on general development and African issues.

D’Orville holds a Ph.D and a Masters Degree in Economics from the University of Konstanz, Germany.