UNFPA Press Release: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
BANGKOK, 10 October 2023<\/strong>: Mr. Pio Smith has been appointed as the new Asia-Pacific Regional Director for UNFPA,<\/a> the sexual and reproductive health agency of the United Nations. As the Regional Director for UNFPA Asia and the Pacific, Mr. Smith will oversee the organization\u2019s work in 36 countries<\/a> in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is a great pleasure and honour to be appointed as UNFPA Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific. More than half of the world\u2019s 8 billion population live in Asia and the Pacific, a region of diverse population trends and tremendous opportunity in advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights,\u201d said Mr. Smith. \u201cI join at a critical time when governments, together with civil society, are reviewing the progress made since the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development<\/a>. We are working with partners to continue accelerating progress for every woman and girl to access sexual and reproductive health services across the region, so that we can build safer and more inclusive societies for all.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Prior to this appointment, Mr. Smith was the Chief of Staff of UNFPA, providing strategic, political and operational leadership and oversight, a role he held since 2018 based at UNFPA\u2019s headquarters in New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During his 18-year career with the United Nations, Mr. Smith has held key positions including working as Special Assistant to two UN Deputy Secretary-Generals and as Chief of Staff to the Secretary-General\u2019s Special Advisor on Post-2015 Development Planning. He also served as Policy Officer in the UN\u2019s Ethics Office and in the UN Secretariat\u2019s Department of Management. Before joining the United Nations, Mr. Smith worked in the UK Home Office on regulatory reform and with the UK Regional Assembly focusing on European policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Smith holds a Master\u2019s degree in International Relations from Dublin City University, Ireland, and a Bachelor\u2019s degree in Foreign Languages from the Queen\u2019s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A national of Ireland, Mr. Smith is married and has four children. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" UNFPA Press Release: BANGKOK, 10 October 2023: Mr. Pio Smith has been appointed as the new Asia-Pacific Regional Director for UNFPA, the sexual and reproductive health agency of the United Nations. As the Regional Director for UNFPA Asia and the Pacific, Mr. Smith will oversee the organization\u2019s work in 36 countries in the region. \u201cIt is a great pleasure and honour to be appointed as UNFPA Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific. More than half of the world\u2019s 8 billion population live in Asia and the Pacific, a region of diverse population trends and tremendous opportunity in advancing sexual… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35427"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35429,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35427\/revisions\/35429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}