Nikolai Zaitsev retired on 31 August as Head of DESA’s Capacity Development Office. Mr. Zaitsev joined the UN in March 1982 as an economic research staff of the UN Centre on Transnational Corporations. He initiated and produced a study on TNCs and the environment, which led to many subsequent UN publications in this field.

In 1987-1991, Mr. Zaitsev was the project officer of a pioneering technical cooperation programme in the former Soviet Union on foreign direct investment. This programme had an important trigger effect that helped change perceptions (and policies) in the last years of the USSR on investment cooperation with the rest of the world. In 1992-1993, he held the position of Secretary of the UN joint delegation to the three international conferences on the Commonwealth of Independent States. Immediately after, he served as Coordinating Secretary of the Inter-Agency Task Force on the CIS, which would eventually lead to the establishment of UN Joint Offices in all the republics of the CIS.

In the late 1990s, Mr. Zaitsev became part of the original “pack” of practitioners in the Secretariat which introduced Results based Budgeting (RBB) in the UN regular budget programming and implementation. He was one of the main ‘brains’ behind the concept of IMDIS which is still used by the Secretariat for programming and reporting of its activities. He advanced the idea and steered the development of the Travel DataBase – today one of the key administrative tools in DESA.

In 2002, Mr. Zaitsev became Chief of the OUSG in DESA, a post he would hold for seven productive years, aiding three consecutive USGs, making him the longest serving Chief of Staff in the history of the Department. In February of 2009, he became Head of DESA’s Capacity Development Office. His important responsibilities have included the management of the UN Development Account, a role he has been playing enthusiastically since Day One of the Account’s establishment in 1997.

The following staff member also retired in August:

Cynthia Conti, Programme Assistant, Division for Public Administration and Development Management