Brief Biography of Francis M. O’Donnell

Francis Martin O'Donnell is the Resident Coordinator of the United Nations system in Ukraine, having arrived on 30 September 2004. He has been appointed to this post by the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, having recently served in the same capacity in Serbia and Montenegro. UNDP's Administrator Mark Malloch Brown has also appointed Mr. O'Donnell as Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme in Ukraine. As Resident Coordinator, he is the designated representative of the UN Secretary-General and leads the UN Country Team of UN agencies and related bodies and is primus inter pares amongst several such accredited UN system chefs de mission diplomatique. Since 1976, he has also served the UN in Sudan, Lesotho, Mauritania, Niger, Switzerland, Turkey, the United States of America, and recently in Serbia & Montenegro. He also undertook short missions in over 40 other countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Central and Eastern Europe, North America, and the Caribbean.

Mr. O'Donnell previously served in Serbia & Montenegro since October 2000, when he arrived within days of the downfall of the Milosevic regime, to restore relationships at highest levels, work with civil society and foster recovery. Serving initially as UNDP's interim representative, he was actively involved in efforts to promote governance reforms. He established a field presence in Montenegro, helping revive its constitutional aspirations to be an ecological state. He launched the pioneering Capacity Building Fund, replicated elsewhere, and similar programmes reforming public administration, the judiciary and the defence sector. He steered UNDP's first Country Cooperation Framework for 2002-2004, and the preparation of the successor Country Programme for 2005-2009. Programmes were largely donor-funded, with contributions from 12 bilaterals, IFIs, regional organizations and private foundations.

On the UN system side, he facilitated the transition from humanitarian assistance to development cooperation, with overall UN system assistance to the country exceeding US$ 100m a year during his tenure. He coordinated preparation of Serbia-Montenegro's first UN Development Assistance Framework for 2005-2009, using a rights-based approach, adopted on 31 March 2004. He also launched activities to support capacity-building for domestic prosecution of war crimes and enhanced cooperation with the ICTY, including at the regional level. He led UN system efforts in southern Serbia, helping prevent further conflict by establishing a regional development programme for confidence-building between ethnic Albanians and the state authorities. Mr. O'Donnell also launched joint initiatives with the European Agency for Reconstruction, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Stability Pact for South East Europe, including a regional small arms reduction programme in the Balkans.

Previously, in East Timor he led a series of missions in early 2000, including the first strategic negotiations bringing together East Timorese national leadership and senior UN officials on the formation of a joint administration and the establishment of a public service. This led to the establishment of a joint first government, endorsed by the UN Security Council. He also managed a US $ 200 million portfolio of post-conflict recovery programmes in 40 war-torn countries from 1996-1999. In 1995, he coordinated international response to a major earthquake in western Turkey. He also represented UNDP on Palestinian refugee issues in the Middle-East Peace Process. He launched a major UN humanitarian volunteer programme worldwide in 1992, deploying over 500 UNVs on 100 projects in 40 countries.

Mr. O'Donnell was born in Dublin, Ireland. He is an honours graduate in Economics and Philosophy from University College Dublin, and has also read International Law and Diplomacy at postgraduate level in Geneva, and qualified in Disaster Management at the University of Wisconsin and of the Institute of International and European Affairs. In 1968, a Middle Eastern Society was founded at his initiative, and played a key role in promoting Irish trade links and diplomatic relations with states in the Middle East and North Africa throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In the early 1990s, he was actively involved in promoting global peace services and inter-faith dialogue, with World Peacemakers and the U.S. Agency for International Development, Global Alliance of Peace Services, the Life and Peace Institute, the Swedish Christian Council, Pax Christi, International Alert, and others.

At the invitation of the Irish Tanaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) and Foreign Minister in early 1995, he contributed towards the first White Paper on Irish Foreign Policy. His monograph is lodged in the National Archives, and acknowledged in the published White Paper (1996). In the summer of 1997, he was subject of two-page feature as successful graduate in inaugural summer 1997 issue of "UCD Connections" (University College Dublin, alma-mater), and more recently in the CoRD magazine in Belgrade. He has appeared on national TV and radio programmes in several developing countries and in France, Italy, Turkey, as well as on Irish RTE, UK Radio-4, KRTV (US), and on the BBC and CNN, and Serbian and Montenegrin TV channels (RTS, B92, Beta) as well as in various print media. He also delivered keynote addresses at international conferences. Several of his papers have been published and he has contributed chapters to several published works on peace and governance issues.