At its annual meeting at UN Headquarters in New York, Professor Allan Rosenbaum of Florida International University in Miami was elected to a two-year term as Vice Chairperson of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration. Membership on the Committee involves a term of four years and is limited to 24 individuals from throughout the world with no more than one person from a country. Individuals are nominated for the Committee by the UN Secretary General, approved by their Country’s United Nation’s Ambassador and elected to the Committee by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. Current membership of the Committee includes present and former cabinet ministers, ambassadors and other senior governmental officials, as well as distinguished academics.
While Professor Rosenbaum is the fourth American to have been selected to serve on the Committee, he is the first to have ever been elected as either Chair or Vice Chair of the Committee in its 16 year history. The Committee was established by the UN Economic and Social Council for the purpose of providing guidance to the Council, and the various organs of the United Nations concerned with issues of public administration and economic development, on issues of governance reform and the building of effective governmental administration. The Committee meets at least once a year in formal session in New York and at other times during the year Committee members participate in a wide variety of meetings and related activities around the world on behalf of the United Nations.
Professor Rosenbaum joined FIU 27 years ago as Dean of its then School of Public Affairs and Services. He has written extensively on issues of good governance and democratic institution building throughout the world. He has worked in in local, state and national government in the United States and directed major US government democratic institution building projects in Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America. He is a member of the Congressionally established National Academy of Public Administration and a Past President of both the American Society for Public Administration located in Washington, DC and the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration located in Brussels, Belgium. He is the recipient of numerous awards from various universities, professional associations and governments around the world and has served as Visiting Distinguished Professor at the University of Potsdam, Germany.