Tony Pipa has been named the principal United States negotiator for the United Nations post-2015 development agenda, also known as the Sustainable Development Goals, which are being written and finalized this year to replace the soon-expiring Millennium Development Goals.
The appointment reflects US efforts to become more fully engaged in the process of UN member states’ finalizing the next set of development goals, which now number an incredulous 17 goals with 169 “targets.” The current Millennium goals feature a more modest eight goals.
Pipa will lead negotiations for the US during the next nine months to their conclusion at a high-level summit meeting in September at UN headquarters in New York. Working with a team from the Department of State, Pipa will also liaise with the US mission to the UN and other US government offices while being based in Washington, D.C.
Pipa most recently worked as a policy adviser in the US Agency for International Development’s Bureau of Policy, Planning and Learning, where he has been focusing on the post-2015 plan. He was an independent consultant before joining the government, during which he worked with nongovernment organizations and helped found the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.
Pipa has a bachelor’s degree from Duke University and a master’s in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
Dulcie Leimbach is a co-founder, with Barbara Crossette, of PassBlue. For PassBlue and other publications, Leimbach has reported from New York and overseas from West Africa (Burkina Faso and Mali) and from Europe (Scotland, Sicily, Vienna, Budapest, Kyiv, Armenia, Iceland and The Hague). She has provided commentary on the UN for BBC World Radio, ARD German TV and Radio, NHK’s English channel, Background Briefing with Ian Masters/KPFK Radio in Los Angeles and the Foreign Press Association.
Previously, she was an editor for the Coalition for the UN Convention Against Corruption; from 2008 to 2011, she was the publications director of the United Nations Association of the USA. Before UNA, Leimbach was an editor at The New York Times for more than 20 years, editing and writing for most sections of the paper, including the Magazine, Book Review and Op-Ed. She began her reporting career in small-town papers in San Diego, Calif., and Boulder, Colo., graduating to the Rocky Mountain News in Denver and then working at The Times. Leimbach has been a fellow at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies as well as at Yaddo, the artists’ colony in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; taught news reporting at Hofstra University; and guest-lectured at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the CUNY Journalism School. She graduated from the University of Colorado and has an M.F.A. in writing from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
