Dr. Richard Ponzio

Richard Ponzio is is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Global Governance, Justice & Security Program at the Stimson Center.  Previously, he led the Global Governance Program at The Hague Institute for Global Justice, where (in partnership with Stimson) he served as Project Director for the Albright-Gambari Commission on Global Security, Justice & Governance. Earlier, Dr. Ponzio coordinated Secretary Hillary Clinton’s and later John Kerry’s New Silk Road initiative at the State Department, and he served in New York and numerous conflict zones with the United Nations (including UNDP, DPKO, and the Peacebuilding Support Office). Dr. Ponzio has published widely, including Democratic Peacebuilding: Aiding Afghanistan and other Fragile States (OUP, 2011) and, along with Arunabha Ghosh, Human Development and Global Institutions: Evolution, Impact, Reform (Routledge, 2016). He received his doctorate in politics and international relations from the University of Oxford on a Clarendon Scholarship.

Vision Statement

Building on UNA-NCA and USIP's June 30 Experts Roundtable on peacekeeping reform, Richard aims to establish a UNA-NCA Experts Working Group on Sustaining Peace & Preventing Violent Conflict, both to feed ideas into Secretary-General António Guterres' forthcoming "Sustaining Peace" report (to be shared with member states in Jan. 2018) and to sustain a D.C. anchored community of citizens, activists, and scholars committed to advancing the United Nations' peace and security agenda, including a special, near-term focus on the US-UN funding crisis. In addition, Richard wishes to help increase UNA-NCA's outreach to local high school and university student groups related to the UN's peace and security work and broader global cooperation agenda, as well as to build bridges with civil society and other organizations helping to respond to UN political and humanitarian crises, such as Syria.