Francesco Bastagli: First Levermore Global Scholars Fellow

Francesco Bastagli

This semester, the Levermore Global Scholars program (LGS) welcomed Francesco Bastagli to campus as the first LGS Fellow.  Mr. Bastagli, a native of Milan, Italy, has had a distinguished  international career that has spanned several decades, beginning in 1974, when he joined the United Nations as special assistant  to the secretary-general for personnel services.

Over the years, his many accomplishments have included representing UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in Western Sahara, where he led the civilian and military components of the UN peacekeeping mission. While serving as deputy special representative of the secretary-general for civil administration in Kosovo, after its ethnic conflict, he was responsible for civil administration. In the period before Kosovo gained independence, his duties covered oversight of government ministries in four regions and thirty municipalities.

As UN resident coordinator in Iran, he led interagency humanitarian, development and good governance initiatives. As chief of the executive office of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNWRA), he promoted reforms in health, education and development programs. In this position, he was instrumental in adjusting operations to address emergencies affecting Palestinians arising from the War of the Camps in Lebanon and the Gulf War. At the outset of the first intifada, he launched pioneering programs to support UNWRA operations serving refugees and monitor developments on the ground.

At the fall of the Somoza government in Nicaragua, he established and was responsible for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, developing and managing programs that served 800,000 returning refugees and displaced persons. Throughout his career, Mr. Bastagli has worked extensively on a wide range of other international issues, including drug control, organized crime, poverty alleviation and the peaceful use of nuclear energy. He continues to advise various United Nations initiatives around the world.