​Mr. Asif R. Khan is Director of the Policy and Mediation Division in the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) since 2022. The Policy and Mediation Division is DPPA’s systemwide service provider on Mediation Support, Policy Planning, Gender Peace and Security, Innovation, Guidance and Learning, and Climate Peace and Security.He was previously Chief of Mediation Support and Gender, Peace and Security in DPPA for five years, overseeing UN support to mediation and peace processes around the world. Between 2012 and 2017, Asif served as the Officer-in-Charge and Deputy Director of the UN Secretary-General›s Political, Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Human Rights Unit. Over almost three decades, he has served in assignments with UN political missions and peacekeeping operations in Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Israel-Palestine, Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as serving at UN headquarters in New York and Geneva. He has taught as an adjunct lecturer at Columbia University and was most recently a visiting fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) in Oslo, when he published “When Great powers behave: Mediation lessons from the Cambodia peace process” (NUPI & Centre from Humanitarian Dialogue, 2022). Asif received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Columbia University and a master’s degree from the University of Toronto.