Yann Duval is Chief, Trade Facilitation Unit, Trade and Investment Division, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). Since joining ESCAP in 2002, he has designed and delivered capacity building programmes and advisory services on trade policy and facilitation throughout the ESCAP region, including the trade facilitation segment of the Regional WTO Trade Policy Course at the National University of Singapore. He currently leads the activities of the United Nations Network of Experts for Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific (UNNExT), a community of experts dedicated to making trade more transparent and efficient through electronic exchange of information.Dr. Duval has been instrumental in the creation and development of the Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade (ARTNeT), a network of leading research and academic institutions in developing countries of the region aiming at building capacity in trade and investment policy and facilitation research for evidence-based policy making. As coordinator of the ARTNeT trade facilitation research, Mr. Duval has overseen the delivery as well as directly contributed to various regional studies in this area. His recent analytical work has focused on the need for trade and investment regulatory coherence and the development of a global bilateral trade cost database in collaboration with the World Bank.Prior to joining the United Nations, Dr. Duval was Assistant Professor of International Business and of Agricultural Economics at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) and Washington State University (USA), respectively. His work has been published in various academic journals, including International Tax and Public Finance and the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Kansas State University, USA as well as an engineering degree from ESA Purpan, France.
