MDP Faculty

Mr. Jean-Marc Boulgaris, Ambassador and former Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva. He started his career in the diplomatic service in 1968 and has held many postings, including as Deputy Permanent Observer of Switzerland to the United Nations in New York, Political Director of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and Ambassador to Denmark and Colombia. He also represented Switzerland in meetings of the GATT, EFTA, OECD and the IAEA.

In 2003-2004, Ambassador Boulgaris was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Programme of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He served as Member of the UNITAR Board of Trustees and is a Member of the Board of the Friends of the Conference of NGOs accredited to the Economic and Social Council (CONGO), in Geneva, Switzerland.

Ms. Alice Hecht is the former Chief of Protocol of the Executive Office of the Secretary-General (2006-2009) where she was a key interlocutor between Heads of States, Governments and Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the Secretariat on organization of their participation to the General Assembly, summits, and United Nations international conferences. She worked previously as the Chief of the Logistics Section the UN Department of Peace Keeping Operations (1991-1992), the Chief Administrative Officer of the UN Special Commission for Iraq (1992-2003), and the Director of Administration of the UN Mission in Kosovo (2003-2006). Ms. Alice Hecht was born and educated in Belgium where she received her Licence en Sciences Sociales from the Université Libre de Bruxelles.

Tim Murithi is Head of the Justice and Reconciliation in Africa Programme, Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, in Cape Town, and a Research Fellow with the University of Cape Town, in South Africa. He has previously worked with the: Institute for Security Studies, in Addis Ababa;  Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, in the United Kingdom; Centre for Conflict Resolution, University of Cape Town; and the Programme in Peacemaking and Preventive Diplomacy, in the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), in Geneva, Switzerland. He obtained his Ph.D in International Relations from the Department for International Relations, Keele University, England. He has worked as an Adviser to the African Union; UN Development Programme, in Sierra Leone; and the Crisis Management Initiative, in Helsinki, on peace and security issues. He is on the International Advisory Boards of the: African Journal of Conflict Resolution; Journal of Peacebuilding and Development; African Peace and Conflict Journal and the journal Peacebuilding.

He is the author of over 75 publications, including two authored and four edited books. His most recent publication is an edited book entitled: The African Union Peace and Security Council: A Five Year Appraisal (2012).

Mr. Éric Blanchot, 40, is the coordinator for the Sahel region at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva. Since 2002 he has been working as a lecturer at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA) and at a number of other French universities (EP Lille Science Po, Ponts et Chaussées, ESSEC and others). As of February 2006, Éric BLANCHOT has been involved in the training programme of the Initiative for Collaborative Leadership and Cohesion in the Democratic Republic of Congo (ILCCE) and he also worked for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ivory Coast where he facilitated meetings between members of the Integrated Command Centre. He is furthermore active as a facilitator in the area of social affairs in France where he advises a number of trade union confederations on inter-professional negotiations. Éric Blanchot also acts as a negotiator in private litigations. In addition to the activities mentioned above, Mr. Blanchot is the author and director of a number of documentary films for French television.