Résume of biographical data: Bimal Ghosh

Bimal Ghosh is the director of a global project on migration management: New International Regime for Orderly Movements of People (NIROMP), and recently served as the Scientific Coordinator, West African Ministerial Conference on migration, human rights and development, 2000. For several years (1991-1999) he has worked as a senior consultant to the United Nations and the International Organization for Migration in Geneva on migration, development and human rights issues. He was a member of the Working Group of Inter-governmental Experts on Human Rights of Migrants, UN Human Rights Commission, 1998-1999. He has, inter alia, served as the director of programmes on migration, refugees and population at the Centre for European Political and Economic Analysis in Geneva and as an external consultant to the German Technical Cooperation Agency (ETZ), Eschborn; the Council of Europe, Strasbourg; and the Commission on Global Governance, Geneva/ Stockholm on population movements, including protection of the rights of regular and irregular migrants, refugees and those in a refugee-like situation.

Formerly a senior director in the United Nations development system, he held the positions, among others, of coordinator, UN Substantive Secretariat for Operational (development cooperation) Activities; senior consultant to the UNDP Administrator; and UNDP Resident Representative (concurrently as representative of the Secretary-General on disaster relief) in Colombia. The first national plan of external technical assistance of the country, prepared under his over-all technical responsibility and guidance, was hailed by the competent UN policy making body (including representatives of Italy, Switzerland and the USA) as a "model programme" to be followed in other countries.

He also served, at the International Labour Organisation (ILO), as special adviser to the Director-General and as director of technical cooperation and development in Geneva (1983-85). He worked as director for South Asia (1974-79) and for West Africa (1963-66). He was secretary-general of the Technical Conference on Sedentarisation of Nomads in the Sahel, Niamey, Niger (1968); and the Latin American Conference on the Role of Agricultural Organisations in Economic and Social Development, Santiago, Chile (1969).

On behalf of bilateral programmes and/or international agencies, Ghosh led numerous multi-member missions to deal with specific aspects of human security and social and economic development, including migration and refugee integration, in different parts of the world. He was the leader of a UNDP/World Bank mission on foreign direct investment to East/South-East Asia ( China, Indonesia and Thailand and the Philippines). The inter-agency mission he led in 1963 to Burundi and Zaire (Congo-Leopoldville) laid the basis for future bilateral and multilateral assistance programmes for refugee integration through zonal development, linking relief, rehabilitation and longer-term development within a coherent framework. More recently, he carried out an investigative mission in Central Europe and prepared a report on East-West migration for the Conference of European Ministers on Movement of Persons from Central and Eastern European Countries (Vienna, 1991).

Bimal Ghosh, who is Emeritus Professor at Colombia's Graduate School of Public Administration, studied economic, social sciences and law. He was a Visiting Scholar/Fellow at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Harvard Institute for International Development and the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, England. In recent years he has been lecturing in a visiting capacity at various academic institutions including the Graduate Institute of International Studies, and the University Institute of Development Studies in Geneva; International Development Law Institute in Rome; Institute of Management Development in Lausanne; Georgetown University, Washington; and Nijmegen University, the Netherlands

He is the author of numerous reports and publications on international economic, political and human rights issues, with a focus on migration, trade, development aid and globalization. His most recent publications include: Managing Migration: Time for a New International Regime? (ed./co-author), Oxford University Press, 2000); Return Migration: Jouney of Hope or Despair? (ed/co-author) (United Nations/IOM, 2000); Huddled Masses and Uncertain Shores: Insights into Irregular Migration, (Kluwer Law International, 1998) and Gains from Global Linkages: Trade in Services and Movemenst of Persons (Macmillan,1997) He writes regularly for European and US press as well as for academic/professional journals on these and related global issues.

Ghosh has been a guest/keynote speaker at numerous conferences, high-level seminars, and colloquia organised by various national governments, inter-governmental bodies and non-governmental institutions, including the United Nations and related agencies; the Wold Bank ; Council of Europe Assembly; The Royal Institute for International affairs, London; Mexican Academy of Human Rights; Aspen Institute, Berlin; Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco; Wilton Park, Wiston House, West Sussex, England; Ditchley Foundation, Oxfordshire; England; Institute of International Studies, South Carolina, USA; Association for Post-Keynesian Economics, University of Antwerp, Belgium; Center for West European Studies, University of Pittsburgh, USA; University of Lausanne, Switzerland; German Society for Foreign Affairs, Berlin; World Employment Services Association, Nurenberg; the ACP secretariat in Brussels; University of Notre Dame, Indiana; Austrian Government, representing the EU Presidency; Vienna; Italian Senate Committee on migration;  Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Israeli  Ministry of Social Affairs; German Employment Institute, Frankfurt; Internationl Social Security Association, Geneva ; Amsterdam University/Inst. of Migration and Ethnic Studies, Amsterdam and Inst. of Employment Research. Nuremberg.

Bimal Ghosh is an Honorary Fellow of the School of International Policy and Diplomacy, University of Tadeo Lozano, Bogota; a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Nigerian Centre for Human Resources Development, Lagos; and a recipient of D.Litt and other honorary academic degrees. He was a member of the Governing Council of the Centre for European Political and Economic Analysis, Geneva. He was awarded the Grand Cross of San Carlos by the Government of Colombia for his contribution to development and international cooperation.

He speaks English, French, Spanish and a number of Asian languages.

6/ 2001

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