Delhi Sustainable Development Summit 2002
Ensuring sustainable livelihoods:
challenges for governments, corporates, and civil society at Rio+10
8 - 11 February 2002, New Delhi

Speakers

  Introduction
  Themes
  Speakers
  Papers
  Programme
    - 8 Feb. 2002
    - 9 Feb. 2002
    - 10 Feb. 2002
    - 11 Feb. 2002
  Summit bulletin
  Media coverage
  Global support
  Register
  Useful information
  Contact us

  DSDS 2001
    -  Conference proceedings
   
  TERI silver jubilee
    -  Conference proceedings

Mr Nitin Desai
Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs and Secretary-General of the World Summit on Sustainable Development

Mr. Nitin Desai received a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Bombay in 1962 and, in 1965, earned a Master’s degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Mr. Desai worked as a consultant for Tata Economic Consultancy Services and lectured in economics at the Universities of Southampton and Liverpool in the United Kingdom. He has been a member of the Commonwealth Secretariat Expert Group on Climate Change, and of the Board of the Stockholm Environment Institute, and has published several articles and papers on development planning, regional economics, industry, energy and international economic relations.

Mr. Desai began his government career in 1973 in the Planning Commission of the Government of India where he served in various capacities. In 1983 he served concurrently as Secretary of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India.

Before joining the United Nations, Mr. Desai was Secretary and Chief Economic Adviser in India?s Ministry of Finance. From September 1985 to March 1987, he served as Senior Economic Adviser for the World Commission on Environment and Development (The Brundtland Commission). From 1990 to 1993, Mr. Desai was the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. In that capacity one of his primary responsibilities was to coordinate the work of the UNCED Secretariat related to the development of Agenda 21, the principal programmatic outcome of the Conference.

In early 1993 the then United Nations Secretary-General established three new departments at United Nations Headquarters in the economic, social and related fields. In February 1993 he appointed Nitin Desai at the Under-Secretary-General level to head the newly created Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development. The substantive work of this Department supported the various United Nations intergovernmental bodies, including the Economic and Social Council, and the Commission on Sustainable Development. Other functions of this Department included the follow up to the Fourth World Conference on Women, the World Summit for Social Development, and the Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States. These functions are now part of the consolidated Department which Mr. Desai heads.

In March 1997, Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Mr. Desai to coordinate, and subsequently head, the consolidation of the three economic and social Departments. The consolidated Department provides substantive support to the normative, analytical, statistical and relevant technical cooperation processes of the United Nations on the economic and social side. Recently, in October 2001, the Secretary-General asked Mr. Desai to act as Secretary-General of the Johannesburg Summit. Mr. Desai will undertake this task in addition to his existing responsibilities. Mr. Desai is also the Convenor of the Executive Committee on Economic and Social Affairs which brings together the heads of all the UN Secretariat entities directly concerned with economic, environmental and social issues.