DR. GIOVANNI DI COLA
Director

Dr. Giovanni di Cola, a national of Italy, was appointed Director of the ILO Office and Decent Work Team (DWT) for the Caribbean on 1 May 2013.  Prior to his appointment he was Deputy Director from 1 September 2009, and Officer-in-Charge from 2012. He was Coordinator of the ILO-Universitas Programme at the Department of Development Cooperation and Partnerships at the ILO Headquarters. In that capacity he promoted Decent Work through training, innovation and knowledge-sharing among ILO tripartite constituents, UN agencies, local and national stakeholders and networks of universities in Central America and Cuba, Southern and Northern Africa and the Balkans.

Dr. di Cola started his career with UNESCO in 1983 in Dakar, Senegal as Assistant to the Regional Director for Sub-Saharan Africa. In 1986 he joined the UNICEF Office in Niger as Information and Communication Officer after having worked briefly with UNFPA Sub-regional Team as Research Assistant on population issues in Dakar, Senegal.

In 1988 he joined the ILO’s labour-intensive programme in the Employment Department at ILO Headquarters, focusing on the Portuguese-speaking countries of Africa. Between 1990 and 1998 he served respectively in the ILO Sub-Regional Office in Dakar, Senegal and in the ILO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean in Lima, Peru, working in the areas of programming, technical cooperation, monitoring and evaluation, and gender equality.  Between 1998 and 2000 he worked in the Department of Development Cooperation at the ILO Headquarters as Senior Development Cooperation Officer in charge of the ILO Report on Technical Cooperation for the ILO Governing Body, resource mobilization and relations with regions (Arab States and Europe) and donors (Switzerland, Spain, Italy and Portugal). In 2000, he became the UN Resource Person, training UN Country Teams in Eritrea, Peru, Cameroon, Tajikistan, Cape Verde, Albania and Iraq on issues related to the UN Reform Agenda, MDGs and UNDAF. He trained ILO officials in the field on the same topics in 2009.

In 2001 he was appointed ILO Focal Point for ‘Sport for Development and Peace’, working closely with the UN Special Advisor on Sport and travelled extensively to South-East Asia, Tunisia, Mozambique and Cuba. He participated in the UN Task Force carrying out and publishing extensively research-actions in the area of skills development through sport and employment in the sports sector. Between 2003 and 2005 he participated in the ILO Director-General’s High-Level Mission to the Arab Occupied Territories. Over the same period he contributed to the organization of UN secretariat summits involving universities, governments, and public-private partners on issues related to youth leadership and training, women leadership, skills development and employment.

Dr. di Cola holds a Doctorate in Development Economics from the University of Paris X. He graduated from the University of Rome in Political Science and has a Master’s degree in Soviet Studies from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (IEP).

September 2013