Mr. Engida, Deputy Director General of UNESCO

Mr. Engida, Deputy Director General of UNESCO,

Excellences,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Dear Mr. and Mrs. d’ Orville,

It is my honor and great pleasure to welcome you tonight at the official function to award the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany to Hans d’ Orville.

The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany was instituted in 1951 by the 1st Federal President Theodor Heuss. It is the only honor that may be awarded in all fields of endeavor and is the highest tribute the Federal Republic of Germany can pay to individuals. It is the only federal decoration of Germany.

Although the new recipient of the Commander’s Cross does not need any introduction here in UNESCO, allow me to say some words about Mr. d’ Orville.

Hans d’ Orville is an outstanding German staff member of the UN system. He has held leading positions at the United Nations, UNDP and UNESCO for almost four decades. In 1975, he was chosen as one of the first five German UN employees after the admission of the two German states to the United Nations (1972). No other member of this small group stayed with the UN as long as Mr. d’ Orville and hardly any other German can look back on a similar career in the UN system. His promotion from P-1 to Assistant Director-General is remarkable. To the long list of his successes at the UN system I would like to add a personal one: he has also met his wife at the United Nations. On this occasion, let me also express my thanks to the Iranian ambassador Ahmad Jalali who has generously contributed Iranian delights to this reception.

Since Mr. d’ Orville entered the UN system very young, at the age of 26, he could have retired at the age of 60. I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Director-General for having extended Hans d’ Orville’s contract – in the interest of the organization – till he reached 65 years. Since his retirement at the end of 2014, he still serves as an advisor to the Director-General who could, unfortunately, not join us tonight.

Allow me to recall that in New York, the “Assistant Secretary-Generals” (ASG’s) and “Under Secretary-Generals” (USG`s) and, of course, the UN Secretary General himself are not subject to the UN - retirement scheme. Some Members of UNESCO’s Executive Board seem to ignore this fact. USG is the corresponding level of an ADG of UNESCO.

But let me go back to the very beginning of Mr. d’ Orville’s career. He left the University of Konstanz (Germany) in 1975. He holds a Master’s degree and a Doctorate in Economics, with a thesis on the problems of evaluation programs in regional policy in the Federal Republic of Germany.

His professional career started in 1975 at the United Nations Secretariat in New York at the P-1 level. After different positions at the Department of Conference Services and Special Assignments and the United Nations Committee of Conferences, Hans d’ Orville became Senior Officer in the Office of the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 1982. There he was mainly responsible for external relations and servicing of the UNDP Governing Council.

In 1983, Mr. d’ Orville was appointed Head of the New York Office of the Inter Action Council (IAC) of 30 former Heads of State or Government. The IAC was initiated in 1983 by the former Japanese Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda and chaired by the former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. From 1988-1995 Hans d’ Orville was Executive Coordinator of the IAC. Returning to executive positions in UNDP in 1995, he was appointed Director of the Technology Task Force and Director of the IT for Development Programme at UNDP (D-1).

His successful work in New York did not remain unknown in other places. In the year 2000, Director- General Matsuura called him as Director for Strategic Planning at UNESCO (D-2), succeeding Francoise Rivière, also with a view to make Mr. d’ Orville’s large UN experience available for UNESCO. A recent example of how this knowledge could be used was his eminent role in the establishment of the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of the UN Secretary General in 2014.

I first met Hans d’ Orville during my first assignment to UNESCO as deputy delegate (1997-2001). He told me upon arrival in Paris proudly that he had reached his position without the support of the German government.

2007 “due to the increasingly proactive role UNESCO was assuming in the efforts relating to UN reform” Director-General Matsuura promoted Mr. d’ Orville to ADG, as second German ADG (in addition to ADG/Natural Sciences).

Within the system wide UN Development Group Mr. d’ Orville has held executive positions, i. a. its deputy chair. The concept of UN acting in its member states “as one” was developed under his leadership.

The newly elected Director-General Irina Bokova asked him to act for 5 months as Deputy Director- General of UNESCO ad interim till her new team was in place. Then she decided to approve Hans d’ Orville as the only ADG from Matsuura’s team.

In July 2010 Director-General Irina Bokova acknowledged Mr. d’ Orville’s eminent role for UNESCO when she presented her new cabinet of ADGs. At this occasion, she stated – and I quote her – that as “a veteran of the UN system […] and the architect of five C/5s”, Hans d’ Orville was both UNESCO’s “institutional memory” and its “trailblazer of the future”. And she remembered that “his colleagues find it a little hard to explain to him that not everyone can work seven days out of seven, 24 hours out of 20, and do several jobs at the same time.”

One could easily add achievements to Mr. d’ Orville’s impressive career. Allow me to just mention a few of them: Mr. d’ Orville was consultant to several governments, like Nigeria, and to international bodies like the Eco Forum Global (EFG) in Guiyang (China), he served on the Executive Committee of the Africa Leadership Forum, as an Advisor to the Independent Commission of Population and Quality of Life, the Independent Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development.

And he is author of many books and publications on UN affairs, information and communication technologies and development issues. He also edited a book in honor of the former Federal German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Hans d’ Orville is a passionate advocate for multilateralism and a UN representative par excellence. Since his tireless engagement was led by accuracy and fairness, Mr. d’ Orville’s decisions were topic- oriented, well balanced and avoided one-sided regional interests. By explaining his decisions to all sides, in particular to ExB, he became a true guarantor for transparency in UNESCO.

Hans d’ Orville is a passionate UN representative who has dedicated his rich professional life to the United Nations. I was asked: But what has he done for Germany? My answer was: I believe that even though Mr. d’ Orville has always been loyal to the United Nations, there can be no doubt that his successful and diverse commitment was also to the benefit of the image of Germany. For many years, he was the “face” of Germany in UNESCO and his unique engagement has set standards for the German engagement in the United Nations.

Mr. d Orville was already nominated by President Obasanjo “Officer of the Order of Niger” of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The President of the Federal Republic of Germany has decided to attribute to him “Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit” of the Federal Republic of Germany.

I wish to thank him and congratulate him to an extraordinary career and to this outstanding award.

Vielen Dank und herzlichen Glückwunsch zu dieser großartigen Auszeichnung, lieber Herr d’ Orville!