UNICRI STAFF

UNICRI DIRECTOR

Mr. Sandro Calvani

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed Mr. Sandro Calvani from Italy as Director of the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI). Mr. Sandro Calvani took over the leadership of UNICRI in July 2007 and became the eighth Director to lead the Institute from its establishment in 1967. Before being appointed to UNICRI, Mr. Calvani was leading the UNODC Office in Colombia. Mr. Calvani has significant experience across a wide range of criminal and social issues, particularly in the fields of drug control and crime prevention.

After serving the W.H.O in Africa since 1988, Mr. Calvani joined the United Nations System in 1992. He has served the UN organization in many capacities. He was Country Director of the UNODC Office in Bolivia and developed the largest programme in the field of drug control in the world, with a budget of US$45 million and involving some 300 collaborators around the country.

In 1995 Mr. Calvani became Director of the Barbados-based UNODC Regional Office for the Caribbean and was responsible for UN aspects of drug control coordination in 29 countries and territories in the Region. Under his leadership, UNODC facilitated the development of the first integrated Regional Drug Control Programme, endorsed and sponsored by more than 40 countries.

In 1998 Mr. Calvani served as the Representative of the UNODC to the Institutions of the European Union and in 1999 he joined the UNODC Regional Centre in Bangkok. In 2002 he was elected Chairman of the United Nations Regional working group with a remit to contain the AIDS epidemic for the thirty countries of South East Asia and the Pacific.

Before being appointed to the United Nations, he was Assistant Professor at the University of Genoa. In 1980 he was named Chief of the Development Aid Department of Caritas, Italy. He went on to lead the Caritas International delegation at FAO, WFP and IFAD and was a member of the delegation of the Italian NGOs to the European Commission until 1985. In 1987 he was named Coordinator for the Caritas Foreign Aid Programme and was member of the Governing Board of the Development Cooperation Directorate of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Between 1988 and 1990 Mr. Calvani founded and was the first Executive Director of the World Health Organization Pan-African Centre for Disaster Reduction based in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa. He was thereafter appointed Assistant Director of the World Health Organization African regional office based in Congo, Brazzaville.

To date, Mr. Calvani has worked in 135 countries and is the author of 18 books and more than 600 articles on sustainable development, narcotics trafficking and transnational organized crime.

He was a visiting scientist at Colorado State University and at Harvard and Louvain Universities. He pursued studies in the Economy of Rural Communities, Disaster Preparedness and Response and Leadership in Development.

For more information, please visit: http://www.sandrocalvani.com/