Speaker Bio

Dr Ghassan Khalil is currently serving as UNICEF’s Representative in Greece. Dr. Khalil has dedicated his efforts for more than 25 years to the promotion of children’s rights, women’s and human rights, legal reform, transformative social policy, cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue. His career spans from humanitarian and development work to academia and strategic management. He has extensive experience in a rights-based approach to programming in both development and emergency settings.

He believes in value-based partnerships and in quality education in formal institutions as well as in meaningful community-based education.

Prior to joining UNICEF’s Greece Country Office, he held many positions, including the UNICEF Representative to Georgia, the Senior Advisor to the UNICEF Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa, and the UNICEF Special Representative in Libya. In his home country, Lebanon, he held senior positions, including as legal advisor to the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Secretary-General of the Higher Council for Childhood. He was elected in 1997 as the Chairperson of the Higher Technical Committee for Child Affairs in the League of Arab States. From 2008 to 2011, he was the Social Policy and Strategic Planning Advisor to the Government of Dubai. As a senior consultant, he advised and evaluated projects funded by the United States Government and the European Union, as well as ILO and UNESCO projects. He was also the Managing Director and Principal Consultant of the International Centre for Research and Training (ICRT) in Dubai and the Chairperson of the Beirut Centre for Human Rights, which he also founded. His career also includes serving as a professor of law at several academic institutions. He is an expert in competency-based education, curriculum design and training methodologies. He has authored or co-authored over 20 books and research papers and has published numerous articles in international professional journals. He is one of the authors of the national and civic education textbooks used in public and private schools in Lebanon and has developed numerous syllabi for academic institutions in several countries. He lectured in several universities in many countries, including the Sultan Qaboos University in Oman, the Abu Dhabi Branch of Sorbonne University, La Sagesse University in Lebanon, and many higher judicial institutes. He was also a thesis supervisor of MBA students on leadership and management at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. As a professor at the School of Law of the Grigol Robakidze University in Georgia, he developed and taught a syllabus on leadership. Professor Khalil holds a Maîtrise in Law from the Lebanese University, a Master's degree in International Business Law (Summa Cum Laude) from Paris-Sorbonne University and a Doctorate Degree (Summa Cum Laude) in International Law from Paris-Sorbonne (Paris-V) University. He also attended in 1998 the Columbia University in New York as a research scholar, where he also lectured on child rights. He also has a diploma in Global Management from Thunderbird University in Arizona.

He has received numerous awards from Governments, NGOs and academic institutions, in recognition of his contributions to children’s rights, educational management and social development, and was awarded four Honorary Doctorate degrees from four state universities in Georgia.