Darrick Hamilton, Founding Director: Darrick Hamilton is a university professor, Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy, and founding director of the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy at The New School. Considered one of the nation’s foremost public intellectuals, Professor Hamilton has been profiled in the New York Times, Mother Jones, Bloomberg’s Business Week and the Wall Street Journal. Professor Hamilton was named a Freedom Scholar by the Marguerite Casey Foundation and the Group Health Foundation. He has been involved in crafting policy proposals that have garnered media attention and inspired legislative proposals at the federal, state, and local levels, including baby bonds, guaranteed income, and a federal job guarantee. He has testified before several Senate and House committees, including the Joint Economic Committee and the Senate Banking Committee. He was born and raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York. He is a graduate of Oberlin College and received a PhD in Economics from the University of North Carolina.

Mr. Türk is the current United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. He took up his official functions as High Commissioner on 17 October 2022.

He has devoted his long and distinguished career to advancing universal human rights, notably the international protection of some of the world's most vulnerable people - refugees and stateless persons.

Prior to this, Mr. Türk was the Under-Secretary-General for Policy in the Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary-General where he coordinated global policy work. He also ensured UN system-wide coordination in the follow-up to the Secretary-General’s “Call to Action for Human Rights” and his report, Our Common Agenda, which sets out a vision to tackle the world’s interconnected challenges on foundations of trust, solidarity and human rights. He previously served as Assistant Secretary-General for Strategic Coordination in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General (2019-2021).

As Assistant High Commissioner for Protection in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva (2015-2019), Mr. Türk played a key role in the development of the landmark Global Compact on Refugees.

Over the course of his career, he held a number of key positions including at UNHCR headquarters where he served as Director of the Division of International Protection (2009-2015); Director of Organizational Development and Management (2008-2009); and Chief of Section, Protection Policy and Legal Advice (2000-2004). Mr. Türk also served UNHCR around the world, including as Representative in Malaysia; Assistant Chief of Mission in Kosovo and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, respectively; Regional Protection Coordinator in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and in Kuwait.

Mr. Türk holds a doctorate in international law from the University of Vienna and a Master of Laws degree from the University of Linz, Austria. He has published widely on international refugee law and international human rights law. He is fluent in English and French and has a working knowledge of Spanish.

H.E. Ms. Paula Narváez Ojeda is the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Chile to the United Nations. She presented her credentials to UN Secretary-General António Guterres on 8 June 2022.

Before this latest appointment, Ms. Narváez was the Officer-in-Charge at the
United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
(UN-Women) in Guatemala, from February to May 2022.
She also served as Socio-Political Adviser at the UN-Women Regional Office
for Latin America and the Caribbean, from October 2021 to February 2022,
and Regional Adviser for Governance and Political Participation in the same
office, from 2018 to 2020.

Between 2016 and 2018, Ambassador Narváez was Minister Secretary
General of Government, and she served as a Presidential Adviser from 2014
to 2016. From 2012 until 2014, she was a Latin America and Caribbean
Section Program Specialist at UN-Women, based in New York.
Following the eruption of the Chaitén Volcano in Chile in May 2008,
Ambassador Narváez served as the delegate of then-President Michelle
Bachelet to the Chaitén Volcano Emergency, from 2008 to 2009. She has
also held a number of other Government positions.

Ambassador Narváez earned a master’s degree in Latin American Studies
from Georgetown University in the United States; a master’s degree in
economics and regional management from the Universidad Austral de Chile;
and a degree in psychology from the Universidad Nacional Andrés Bello, also
in Chile.

 Vice President of the Republic of Costa Rica (2018-2022), the first Afro-Costa Rican woman and the second Afro-descendant woman to hold that high office in the Americas, Afro-Costa Rican leader, two-time congresswoman (2002-2006; 2014-2018) and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship (2018).

She is a researcher and human rights activist on issues related to women, indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants, human development, social inclusion and environment. She is currently a member of the Permanent Forum of Afrodescendants of the United Nations.

She was a proponent in Costa Rica of the approval of the Inter-American Convention against Racism, Racial Discrimination and Related Forms of Intolerance (2016); Founder and leader of the Afro-Costa Rican Women’s Center. She promoted the commemoration of the International Day for People of African Descent (2021) and the Permanent Forum of Afrodescendants at the United Nations (2021). In addition, he was a member of the Committee that prepared the “Regional Human Development Report for Latin America and the Caribbean: Multidimensional Progress” (2016) of the United Nations Development Program, director of more than fifteen international researches and author of 20 publications on social inclusion.

Jayati Ghosh taught economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi for nearly 35 years, and since January 2021 she has been Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA. She has authored and/or edited 20 books and more than 200 scholarly articles. Recent books include “The making of a catastrophe: Covid-19 and the Indian economy,” Aleph Books forthcoming 2022; “When governments fail: Covid-19 and the economy,” Tulika Books and Columbia University Press 2021 (co-edited); “Women workers in the informal economy,” Routledge 2021 (edited); “Never Done and Poorly Paid: Women’s Work in Globalising India,” Women Unlimited, New Delhi 2009; co-edited “Elgar Handbook of Alternative Theories of Economic Development, 2014; co-edited “After Crisis,” Tulika 2009; co-authored “Demonetisation Decoded,” Routledge 2017. She has received several prizes, including the 2015 Adisheshaiah Award for distinguished contributions to the social sciences in India; the International Labour Organisation’s Decent Work Research Prize for 2011; and the NordSud Prize for Social Sciences 2010, Italy. She has advised governments in India and other countries, including as Chairperson of the Andhra Pradesh Commission on Farmers’ Welfare in 2004, and Member of the National Knowledge Commission of India (2005-09). She was the Executive Secretary of International Development Economics Associates (www.networkideas.org), an international network of heterodox development economists, from 2002 to 2021. She has consulted for international organizations including ILO, UNDP, UNCTAD, UN-DESA, UNRISD and UN Women and is member of several international boards and commissions, including the UN High-Level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs, the Commission on Global Economic Transformation of INET, the International Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT). In 2021 she was appointed to the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All, chaired by Mariana Mazzucato. In March 2022, she was appointed to the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, mandated to provide a vision for international cooperation to deal with current and future challenges. She also writes regularly for popular media, including newspapers, journals and blogs.