Sam Daws

Sam Daws is Senior Advisor to the United Nations Foundation and serves as the Foundation’s Representative in the United Kingdom. He provides strategic advice and has responsibility in the UK for partnership development with other foundations, the private sector and the British government.  He concurrently serves as a Senior Research Associate at the University of Oxford where he directs a project on UN Governance and Reform.

Prior to joining the UN Foundation, Sam has worked as a senior policy advisor on UN issues for over 20 years, specializing in UN institutions and strategic communications.  He was Executive Director of the United Nations Association of the UK for six years, and has served as First Officer in the Executive Office of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.  He has previously worked for the UN, governments and international NGOs in New York, Geneva, London and Calcutta.

Sam has a BA (Hons) in Social Anthropology with African and Asian Studies and an MA in International Conflict Analysis.  He undertook doctoral studies on the UN at the University of Oxford, and has been a visiting fellow at Cambridge and Yale Universities.  He has authored or edited six books on the work of the United Nations.

Sam has a postgraduate qualification from CASS Business School in Grantmaking, Philanthropy and Social Investment, and completed the Foundation and Endowment Asset Management programme of London Business School in 2007.  He has served on the boards on a number of international NGOs and charitable trusts, and is an alumnus of the Prime Minister’s Top Management Programme of the UK National School of Government.