UNESCO seeks Director, Division of Water Sciences, Secretary of the International Hydrological Programme and Deputy Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences

UNESCO is seeking to appoint a renowned scientific leader and manager to serve as Director Division of Water Sciences, Secretary of the International Hydrological Programme (IHP) and Deputy Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences, based in Paris, France. UNESCO promotes international cooperation in science in the interests of peace, human rights and development. The last decade has seen a significant growth of the freshwater programmes of UNESCO responding to the priority status assigned to freshwater in recent years; as well as to the consideration of the potential impacts of global changes on this basic resource, and to the dramatic rise of freshwater issues in the international development and environment agenda.

The incumbent will provide intellectual, strategic and operational leadership for the freshwater programmes of UNESCO. The Division is the responsible unit for two major international water programmes: the International Hydrological Programme (IHP), the only intergovernmental global water science and education programme in the United Nations system, and the United Nations system-wide World Water Assessment Programme Secretariat led and hosted by UNESCO. In addition, it actively collaborates with the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education (Delft, The Netherlands), the largest international postgraduate school in water resources in the world.

Deadline: 23 January 2010