Dr David Passarelli is Director of UNU’s Centre for Policy Research where he bears overall responsibility for the direction, organization, and administration of the Centre’s research.
He is also a member of UN University’s Senior Management Group, and serves as UNU’s representative to the UN High-Level Committee on Programmes (HLCP).
Between 2022-2023, Dr Passarelli led the Secretariat of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism (HLAB). His research has been commissioned by several influential organizations, including UNICEF, the UN Environment Programme, the UN Development Coordination Office (DCO), and the UK Ministry of Defence’s Development, Concepts, and Doctrine Centre (DCDC) with financial support from the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC).
His research and policy work predominantly focus on global governance, migration, strategic foresight, international development, and global finance. He holds a Doctorate in International Development from the University of Oxford.
He has held several roles at UNU, including as Executive Officer and Secretary of the governing board (2017-2020) and Chief of Staff to UNU’s Under-Secretary-General (2013-2016). He established and led the University’s Office of Academic Affairs between 2011-2013.
He has also held research positions at the Institute on Globalization, Culture, and Mobility, and at the Global Institute for Asian Regional Integration, and lectured at Temple University, Tokyo. His recent publications include:
- 2024, The Demand for a Fair International Financial Architecture (New York: United Nations University).
- 2024, Reforming the Global Financial Architecture to Address the Challenges of Refugee Hosting as a Global Public Good (New York: United Nations University).
- 2023, An International Decade for Data: Multistakeholder Cooperation in a Data-Driven World (New York: United Nations University).
- 2023. Report of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism (New York: United Nations University).
- 2022. Towards an international data governance framework. Statistical Journal of the IAOS, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 703-710.
- 2022. Stress-testing the UN’s regional prevention approaches (New York: United Nations University).
- 2022. Models for Prevention: Lessons from the Sahel, Horn, and Latin America (New York: United Nations University).
- 2021. Beyond Opportunism: The UN Development System’s Response to the Triple Planetary Crisis (New York: United Nations University).
- 2021. Governing Uncertainty (New York: United Nations University).
