RICHARD JOLLY, DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AT UNICEF, NAMED SPECIAL ADVISER TO UNDP ADMINISTRATOR
Press Release
DEV/2087
RICHARD JOLLY, DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AT UNICEF, NAMED SPECIAL ADVISER TO UNDP ADMINISTRATOR
19960116 NEW YORK, 15 January (UNDP) -- Richard Jolly, a development economist and Deputy Executive Director at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) since 1982, has been named Special Adviser to the Administrator at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In his new assignment, effective today, Mr. Jolly will direct the preparation of the annual Human Development Report, succeeding Mahbub ul Haq, who is returning to his native Pakistan.Like Mr. Haq, Mr. Jolly will be responsible for the work of two UNDP units, the Human Development Report Office, now led by Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, and the Office of Development Studies, led by Inge Kaul.
"I am delighted that Mr. Jolly has agreed to join UNDP in this capacity", said UNDP Administrator James Gustave Speth. "His enormous experience and dedication to the cause of people-centred development will be a tremendous asset to UNDP in its fight to rid the scourge of poverty from the developing world."
Mr. Jolly has participated in all major programme developments at UNICEF since 1982, including the Child Survival and Development Strategy, the emergency response to the African drought in the 1980s and the acceleration of global immunization efforts. He led UNICEF's pioneering work on "Adjustment with a Human Face". He also ensured full UNICEF support to help countries reach the goals agreed at the World Summit for Children.
From 1987 to 1991, Mr. Jolly served as Vice-Chairman of the inter-agency task force which followed up on the United Nations Programme of Action for African Economic Recovery and Development. He also led two UNICEF and inter- agency missions in the early 1990s that paved the way for UNICEF work in Central and Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union. Richard Jolly has been heavily involved in inter-agency collaboration within the United Nations, chairing the former Consultative Committee on Substantive Questions (Operations), the United Nations system's operations activities committee (now known as the Consultative Committee on Programme and Operational Questions), from 1988 to 1991.
Mr. Jolly was Director of the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex (1972-1981). Seconded from this post in 1978, he acted as Special Consultant on North-South issues to the Secretary-General of the Organisation for
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Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Mr. Jolly is a member of the Governing Council of the Society for International Development, and has served as Chairman of its North/South Roundtable since 1987.
A national of the United Kingdom, Mr. Jolly graduated in economics at Cambridge University and holds a doctorate in economics from Yale University. He has published extensively on topics related to development and economics.
On leaving UNDP, Mr. Haq will lead the Human Development Centre in Islamabad, Pakistan, an organization that he founded. Mr. Haq will continue his association with UNDP as one of UNDP's Distinguished Human Development Ambassadors and as a personal adviser to Mr. Speth.
In the most recent issue of the Human Development Report, Mr. Speth paid the following tribute to Mr. Haq and to the former head of UNDP's Human Development Report Office, Ms. Kaul:
"For six years, the annual Human Development Report has informed, energized and influenced international discussions of development policy. Few publications have done as much. Mr. Haq and Ms. Kaul, who served as Director of the Human Development Report Office during this period, deserve our most profound admiration and appreciation. They certainly have mine. As they are both moving now to new responsibilities, this Foreword is an appropriate moment to pause and say, simply, thank you. Our commitment to them and to all those who have helped to produce the first six Human Development Reports must be to ensure that future reports are equally insightful and independent."
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