Meet the PERSIST Coordinator

By Unesco PERSIST on 1 December 2016 • ( 0 )

As of November 2016, Stein van Oosteren will act as the PERSIST Coordinator. Stein was already a member of the PERSIST Programme Committee. His personality, his communication skills and his close involvement with UNESCO made him the ideal candidate to safeguard the coherence within the PERSIST programme and to make sure that the PERSIST community keeps on track.

Stein has been an attaché for the Permanent Delegation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to UNESCO since 2011. His background in philosophy and psychology have strengthened his drive to maximize the potential of UNESCO as the “UN organization for the human mind” both by better understanding and promoting the organization. Coming from a water country, the Netherlands, he has played an important role in making UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme (IHP) more visible for a broad audience. As the Chairperson of the IHP Council’s Finance Committee he contributed to increasing IHP’s transparency for decision-makers. Furthermore he played a key role in changing UNESCO’s overall communication about results with a view to increasing impact and support for the organization. Before joining the Permanent Delegation to “plant the seeds of peace” he dealt with cases of organized crime for 10 years as the assistant to the Dutch Police Attaché in Paris.

He made a nice video to explain the problem of “digital unsustainability” and why a programme like PERSIST is needed: