Robert Piper is a Senior Fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation (CIC).
He is a former United Nations (UN) Assistant Secretary-General with 35 years of experience in humanitarian action, international development, and peacebuilding. An Australian national, he served the UN in senior leadership roles on four continents, leading complex operations and institutional reforms at both headquarters and country levels.
Most recently, he served as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Solutions to Internal Displacement (2022–2024), helping advance new approaches to one of today’s most pressing global challenges. From 2018 to 2022, he led the implementation of Secretary-General António Guterres’ landmark reforms to the UN development system as the inaugural Assistant Secretary-General for the Development Coordination Office, overseeing the global network of 131 Resident Coordinators.
Throughout his career, he has held several senior field and headquarters positions, including Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel food crisis, and head of the UN system in Nepal. He also served as Chief of Staff to former US President Bill Clinton during Clinton’s tenure as UN Special Envoy coordinating recovery efforts following the Indian Ocean tsunami.
He has played a leading role in major UN reforms and innovations over the past three decades. His work has included managing NetAid, a groundbreaking UN–private-sector collaboration with the global music industry in 1999; helping establish the €500 million MDG Fund in 2007; and serving as the inaugural Deputy Director of the UN Development Programme (UNDP)’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery in 2002. Most recently, his work on internal displacement contributed to significant shifts in the UN’s understanding and response to a crisis affecting more than 80 million people worldwide. Across these initiatives, he has drawn on more than two decades of hands-on experience in UN country teams, bridging policy and practice.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) in Political Science from the Australian National University, was a Yale University World Fellow in 2004, and is bilingual in English and French.