On 14 April 2025, UNU will host “Change(s) in the United States: Challenges and Opportunities”, a conversation with Ambassador Frederick Barton, lecturer at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, and former United States Representative to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations in New York. The event will start at 18:30 in the 2F Reception Hall at the UNU Headquarters in Tokyo.
A source of global stability and creativity for the past 80 years, the United States is now retrenching, with its effects reverberating across the world. In increasingly turbulent times and amid rising nationalism, we are in urgent need of transformative approaches to foreign affairs that offer concrete and attainable solutions for a peaceful and sustainable future.
Ambassador Frederick Barton will join UNU Rector Tshilidzi Marwala to discuss current challenges to peacebuilding activities, as well as how to prevent, emerge from and rebuild after conflicts. How do we engage in multilateral diplomacy to prevent or mitigate conflict? How has the United States historically engaged in world conflict zones and how has this evolved in response to the current changes to the political scene in Washington, DC?
The UNU Conversation Series aims to foster audience participation; you are encouraged to engage with the speakers during the conversation and at the reception that will follow, where all event attendees are invited to enjoy hors d’oeuvres and drinks while exchanging ideas and making new contacts.
Please note that this event will be in English. Advance registration (by 13 April at 15:00) is required. Please click on the REGISTER button above to access the online registration page.
Please be prepared to present identification at check-in.
About the speaker
Ambassador Frederick "Rick" Barton has dedicated his career to advancing peaceful, democratic change in more than 40 conflict-affected countries over the past three decades. As the last deputy to Sadako Ogata at UNHCR, he pioneered, throughout his career at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the US State Department, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Princeton University, in preventing, mitigating, and rebuilding after conflicts.
From 2011 to 2014, Ambassador Barton served as the first Assistant Secretary of State for Conflict and Stabilization Operations, where he integrated policy and practice to maximize locally driven solutions in regions such as Burma (Myanmar), Central America, Nigeria and Syria. Prior to that, from 2009 to 2011, he was the US Representative to the UN Economic and Social Council in New York, focusing on global development, peacebuilding, climate change, education, health and human rights.
Ambassador Barton’s leadership extended to the CSIS where he co-directed the Post-conflict Reconstruction Project from 2002 to 2009. He also served as Deputy High Commissioner of UNHCR from 1999 to 2001 and was the founding Director of USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI), where he built a lasting institution known for its agility and catalytic impact in fragile regions, from the Balkans to Haiti and Rwanda.
In addition to his work in diplomacy and international development, Ambassador Barton has made a lasting impact as an educator, scholar and writer. He was the Frederick Schultz Professor at Princeton University from 2001 to 2002, and since the publication of his book "Peace Works: America’s Unifying Role in a Turbulent World" (2018), he has contributed to programmes at major universities and institutions worldwide. His mentorship and courses on conflict prevention and recovery have influenced hundreds of students and practitioners.
Ambassador Barton holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College (1971) and an MBA in Public Management from Boston University (1982). He was also awarded an honorary doctorate from Wheaton College in Massachusetts.
