The Executive Director

Dr. Carlos Lopes, UNITAR Executive Director

Dr. Carlos Lopes was appointed Executive Director of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) by the UN Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, on 1st March 2007. In addition, the UN Secretary-General has appointed Carlos Lopes as Director of the United Nations System Staff College (UNSSC), since November 2007. Dr. Lopes was previously UN Assistant-Secretary-General and Political Director in the Executive Office of the UN Secretary-General, in New York.

Dr. Lopes has actively contributed to research on development issues. Specialized in development and strategic planning, he has authored or edited 20 books and taught at Universities and academic institutions in Lisbon, Coimbra, Zurich, Uppsala, Mexico, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. He is affiliated with a number of academic networks, and has helped establish various non-governmental organizations and centers for social research, in particular in Africa. In August 2008, Carlos Lopes was elected to the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, Portugal.

After serving in his native Guinea-Bissau, in the public service in the areas of research, diplomacy and planning, Dr. Lopes joined the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in 1988, as a development economist. While at UNDP, he occupied various positions, including Deputy Director for the Office of Evaluation and Strategic Planning, Resident Representative in Zimbabwe and Deputy, and then Director of the New York-based Bureau for Development Policy. Dr. Lopes was a member of UNDP’s Executive team, in recognition for the role he played in developing UNDP’s decentralized policy advisory services and knowledge networking systems. He also managed UNDP’s global programme, with a portfolio of $1 billion. In June 2003 he became the United Nations Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Brazil, the then largest UNDP programme in the world.

Carlos Lopes holds a PhD in history from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and several degrees in development studies from the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. He has also received an Honorary PhD from the University of Cândido Mendes, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in Social Sciences.