Franz Baumann was born in the Black Forest town of Schramberg, Germany. His father, also called Franz Baumann, was a trained baker and pâtissier as well as a teacher of Russian, French, Italian, and English who, every summer, took his family on extensive travels. Interest in foreign cultures and people was a family trait. Unsurprisingly, his sister was a lifelong language teacher in Germany, but also in England and Russia.

Baumann was educated in the local Gymnasium, studied International Public Administration at Universität Konstanz in Germany and Art History at Bristol University in England, and obtained a doctorate in African Studies from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

His first job was at the European Parliament in Luxembourg, followed by stints at the European Commission in Brussels and at Siemens Headquarters in Munich before he joined the United Nations for a career that would span more than three decades. Under five Secretaries-General, he proudly served in a dozen or so functions in four cities on three continents.

As a junior professional officer with the United Nations Development Programme in Lagos, Nigeria, Franz developed a women-led project in the 1980s to generate edible salt for humans and cattle with solar energy. As an administrative officer at United Nations Headquarters in New York, he opened the ranks of security officers to women, especially women of colour. As a logistics officer, he was part of the core team that supported UNTAG Namibia, the mission that facilitated Namibia’s independence from South Africa and supervised the first democratic elections. Kofi Annan, who later became Secretary-General, appointed Baumann the first Executive Officer of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and subsequently as a member of the small team that drafted Annan’s three management reform reports: Renewing the United Nations¹, Strengthening the United Nations², and Investing in the United Nations³.

After a military putsch against the democratically elected president, the United Nations and the Organization of American States in 1993 dispatched a human rights monitoring mission to Haiti (MICIVIH). Baumann served as its Chief Administrative Officer. Returning to United Nations Headquarters in New York, he was appointed the first Executive Officer of the newly established Department of Peacekeeping Operations. A decade later, he became Deputy Director-General of the United Nations Office at Vienna and, subsequently, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. He also served as Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. Transferred back to Headquarters in New York, Baumann was appointed Assistant Secretary-General for General Assembly Affairs and Conference Management. His last assignment was as Special Adviser on the Environment and Peace Operations with the rank of Assistant Secretary-General, tasked with conceptualizing “Greening the Blue”, an ambitious effort to render environmentally sustainable United Nations Peacekeeping Operations.

Baumann retired from the United Nations at the end of 2015 and turned his attention to academic work, focusing on international climate governance. Having served in Berlin on the Hertie School Board of Trustees for nearly a decade, where he was also a Senior Fellow, he joined New York University as a Visiting Research Professor. Currently, he teaches a summer course at Georgetown University in Washington and serves as the President of the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS), in addition, he is an Executive Editor of Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, a member of the Scientists for Future (S4F) Professional Board, of the Board of Advisers of the Centre for United Nations Studies at the University of Buckingham, of the Advisory Board of the Nigerian Institute for Governance and Economic Transformation (IGET), of the Advisory Board for the University Rankings International Leadership Council (UNIRANKS) and of the Editorial Board of the Chinese Journal of International Economic and Global Governance (JIEGG). He has been writing for Meer since 2022, both in English and German.

Notes

¹ Renewing the United Nations: a programme for reform, Report of the Secretary-General (A/51/950 of 14.7.1997).
² Strengthening of the United Nations: an agenda for further change, Report of the Secretary-General (A/57/387 of 9.9.2002).
³ Investing in the United Nations: for a stronger Organization worldwide, Report of the Secretary-General (A/60/692 of 7.3.2006).