Biography

Bo Viktor Nylund

Director, UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight

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Bo Viktor Nylund, Director, UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight

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Bo Viktor Nylund was appointed Director of UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight in Florence, Italy, in October 2022. In this role, he leads a diverse team of professionals driving change through research and foresight on many child rights issues, sparking global discourse and actively engaging young people in its work.

Before this role, Nylund served as UNICEF’s Representative in Syria (2020–2022), leading programmes and operations reaching nearly 12 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. He used advocacy work to open new and unprecedented opportunities in child protection, education, health, nutrition, social protection, and water and sanitation with the government and non-state actors.

Nylund joined UNICEF in 1998 and has worked in Bangkok, Bujumbura, Colombo, Damascus, Geneva, Khartoum, Nairobi and New York in the areas of senior management, child protection, corporate social responsibility, humanitarian policy and planning, and children’s rights. In 2010, he also supported the OHCHR in developing an office-wide strategy for engagement in humanitarian action. From 1994 to 1996, he worked as a protection officer with the UNHCR in Geneva, Kenya, and Somalia.

He has master’s degrees in law and political science from Columbia University Law School and Abo Akademi University and a PhD in international law from the Geneva Graduate Institute for International Studies. He is a national of Finland and speaks Finnish, Swedish, French and German.

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