Nitin Desai

Mr Desai was a Special Adviser to the UN for the World Summit on an Information Society and Internet Governance from 2004 to 2010 and chaired the UN’s Working Group on Internet Governance and later the multi stake holder group that organises the annual Internet Governance Forum.

He is an Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK and was a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at LSE in 2004.

In the UN, where he was Under Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs, his major work was the organization of a series of global summits, notably the Rio Earth Summit (1992), the Copenhagen Social Development Summit (1995), the Monterrey Finance and Development Summit (2002) and the Johannesburg Sustainable Development Summit (2002).

His major contribution has been the formulation and promotion of the concept of sustainable development in the global policy dialogue, starting with his role as a key draftsman for the seminal report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission), “Our Common Future”.

Mr Nitin Desai has had a long and distinguished career in the Government of India and the United Nations. In the Government of India Mr. Desai worked at senior levels in the Planning Commission from 1973 to 1987. His principal work there was in establishing and managing the system for the cost-benefit analysis of public investment projects. From 1988 to 1990 Mr Desai was the Chief Economic Adviser and Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance.

After his retirement he has been involved in a variety of public policy activities nationally and internationally. He is associated with NGOs and research institutions working in the field human rights, media freedom, security studies, energy, environment and rural development. He writes a monthly column for an Indian daily.