About the Speaker
Ambassador Francis M. O’Donnell contributes on globalization, multilateralism and governance reform to the Association of Schools of Political Studies of the Council of Europe, and global networks of current/former presidents/prime ministers, such as the InterAction Council and the Global Baku Forum, where he regularly moderates their panel discussions under the auspices of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center.
A member and former ambassador of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta to the Slovak Republic, he previously served as a United Nations official/representative for 32 years. The Irish-Arab Society proposed by him in 1968 promoted relations with 12 states in the Middle East in the 1970s. He has published in scholarly journals on public policy, history, genealogy, and inter-faith matters, and lectured at the Sorbonne in Paris and in Berlin, Brussels, Dublin, Helsinki, Kyiv, Madrid, Riga, Rome, Segovia and Vienna. His book The ODonnells of Tyrconnell – A Hidden Legacy, was published in 2018.
He has served as a director on the boards of several organisations including as chairman and is presently a trustee/director of the School of Civic Education (UK), formerly established as the liberal School of Political Studies of Moscow, and which catalysed a multiplicity of similar schools across the former East Bloc, and which now form the above Association of the same under the auspices of the Council of Europe.
He is also a Strategic Advisor of the Global Partnerships Forum (New York), and has been involved similarly with the Non-Violent Peace-Force, an umbrella coalition of NGOs with multi/bi funding, and active in unarmed civilian protection in conflict zones. In early 2012, he was appointed to the Council of the Order of Clans of Ireland (under the patronage of the President of Ireland), and was elected its Chancellor in May 2014, and served until 2015. He graduated with honours in Economics and Philosophy (1975) from the National University of Ireland at University College Dublin, and read International Law & Diplomacy at postgraduate level in Geneva.