Mr Rio Hada UNHCR (Co-opted)

Mr. Hada is currently coordinating the work of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in the area of economic and social rights. He is the focal point on human rights to water and sanitation, and represents the OHCHR in the work of the UN-WATER. He is currently co-leading the UN-Water campaign for the 2019 World Water Day with the theme of leaving no one behind: “Water for all: whoever you are, wherever you are, water is your human right”.

Since joining OHCHR in 2000, he has worked on a variety of mandates related to the right to development and economic and social rights including housing, food, education, poverty and foreign debt. Over the past several years, he led OHCHR’s human rights mainstreaming agenda in the UN system and coordinated UN interagency efforts to integrate human rights in the policies and programmes of the UN development system and to promote human rights-based implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Prior to OHCHR, he served at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs in New York, the UN Office at Vienna, UNDP and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, on a wide range of issues including poverty and social development, post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation, international trade and South-South cooperation.

He holds a Master of International Affairs (economic development and human rights) from Columbia University in New York.