Dr. Joanne Fox-Przeworski
Former UNEP Director for North America and founding director of the Bard Center for Environmental Policy.
Dr. Joanne Fox-Przeworski brings to the field of environment and sustainable development more than three decades of experience as a public servant, researcher, and educator. Her career includes senior management positions at the United Nations, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and Bard College. Through her work with diverse sectors, from government to nonprofit organizations to industry, she has extensive experience with issues ranging from community to global governance, inter-sectoral negotiations, environment and urban policies to corporate social responsibility and human rights. She is currently lecturing and advising on environment and sustainable development programs while also serving on boards of nonprofit organizations.
In 1999 Dr. Fox-Przeworski was invited to Bard College in New York to create a Center for Environmental Policy and a graduate program that would train future environmental leaders. During her tenure as director, from 1999 to August 2006, the Center became recognized for excellence in training students and its innovative curriculum, receiving major grants to further its work linking science and environmental policy within the U.S. and abroad.
From 1995 to 1999 she served as Director for North America of the United Nations Environment Programme, Representative of the Executive Director at the UN in New York, and member of the Senior Management Board of UNEP in Nairobi, Kenya. Her responsibilities included relations with UN Missions, Secretariat, and other agencies; with the governments of Canada and the United States; as well as with educational, environmental and business organizations. This work required regular briefings for diplomatic delegations and Ambassadors, NGOs and UN conferences; media interviews; public presentations; and conferences.
Prior to this position, she served twelve years at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris. Her appointment as Special Advisor to two Deputy Secretary Generals and Coordinator for Sustainable Development spanned the formative period for global environmental negotiations leading up to and following the Earth Summit (UN Conference on Environment and Development) in Rio. During this time she served as Special Assistant to the OECD Cabinet on the first Joint Ministerial Meeting on Environment and Development Co-operation, as the coordinator and member of the delegation to Rio, and representative to the Commission on Sustainable Development at the United Nations. She also headed the newly created Environment Section of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) from 1990 to 1995.
Before moving to the DAC, Dr. Fox-Przeworski was principal consultant to the Urban Affairs Division in the Environment Directorate from 1982 to 1990, responsible for projects on urban economic development and urban impacts of information technologies, and urban policies for aging populations. Her earlier work included collaboration with the Commission of European Communities; the European Centre for Social Welfare, Training and Research; and the French-American Foundation on local economic development and public/private partnerships. These projects built on her previous experience at TRUST, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois, where she conducted policy research and panels on the role of community-based organizations, corporations and foundations in urban development and on technical and financial assistance programs for small businesses.
In addition to books articles, and public presentations in the above areas, Dr. Fox-Przeworski published articles and a book on the copper industry in Chile and a report in the New York Review of Books on the status of human rights in Chile after the Pinochet coup d’etat. She has taught at colleges in New York; Paris, France; St. Louis, Missouri; and lectured extensively in the U.S. and abroad, most recently in Argentina, France, Japan and China. She received an honorary doctorate in laws from Ripon College and a doctoral degree in Latin American history and U.S. foreign relations from Washington University in St. Louis, a master’s degree from Harvard University, and a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University. Post-graduate courses included work at the University of Chicago; the Latin American School for Social Sciences in Santiago, Chile; and the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Dr. Fox-Przeworski received an Environmental Quality Award from the U.S. Environment Protection Agency Region 2; a contract as principal investigator on a four-year project linking science and policy from the New York State Research and Development Authority; and a Henry Luce Foundation grant to strengthen the international component of the environmental policy graduate program at Bard College.
Formerly on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International-USA, Dr. Fox-Przeworski is currently a director of Green Seal, Inc., Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future, and chair of the Board of Distinguished Advisors, Environment and Public Health Network for Chinese Students and Scholars. She also chairs the Steering Committee of the Tromso, Norway-Pultusk, Poland project on governance for sustainable development and lectures in San Andres University, Buenos Aires and American University of Paris. A U.S. national, she speaks French, Spanish, and Polish.
Women's Network for a Sustainable Future 