Gary Lewis, a native of Barbados, has served with the United Nations for 33 years in various duty stations across the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas.
In February 2020, he was as named Director for Disasters and Conflict in UNEP Geneva. Prior to this he served as UNEP Director of Policy and Programme in UNEP HQ in Kenya.
During 2013-2018 he served as the UN Resident Coordinator in Iran.
Gary has spent most of his UN career (1987-2020) working in field-based assignments. The greater part of this work was with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) during 1993-2013.
While he was working with UNODC he headed their East Asia and the Pacific operations (from Thailand), and their South Asia operations (from India). Prior to this he was posted in South Africa and, earlier, Pakistan/Afghanistan/Iran and Austria.
Gary started his UN work with UNDP in his native Caribbean island of Barbados in 1987.
Gary is a published author on the local history of his native Barbados and has written and contributed to many academic articles related to drug control and crime prevention. He has been frequently invited to present on environmental issues particularly those concerning climate change and security, water scarcity, biodiversity loss, and sand and dust storms. See for instance in TEDx Talk.
He has retired now from competitive soccer, but plays bass guitar, classical guitar, drums and percussion. In his spare time, he studies paleo-anthropology and evolutionary psychology. He has been married to Elizabeth Lewis since 1986 and together they have three daughters.
