Robert C. Orr

Robert C. Orr currently serves as the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Strategic Planning in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General. He was appointed to the position by UN Secretary-General in August 2004.

Prior to joining the UN, Orr served as the Executive Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Before that, he was Director of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C.

Orr was a co-director of a bipartisan commission on post-conflict reconstruction sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and the Association of the United States Army between 2001 and 2003.

Between 1996 and 2001, Orr held a variety of senior positions in the Government of the United States. He served as Deputy to the United States Ambassador to the United Nations and Director of the USUN Washington office. In this capacity, he played an active role in securing a delayed payment of nearly $1 billion of the US membership fees to the United Nations. He was also Director of Global and Multilateral Affairs at the National Security Council, in charge of peacekeeping and humanitarian affairs.

Before working for the US government, Orr served at the International Peace Academy in New York and at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Nairobi, Kenya.

Orr holds a Ph.D. and M.P.A. in international relations from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). He speaks Spanish and Mandarin Chinese.