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 Mr. Andrey Vavilov was born in 1936 in Leningrad, USSR (now St.Petersburg).
He studied Oriental Languages and History at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, and received his Diploma in 1960. He also graduated the Diplomatic Academy, Moscow in 1981. He holds a Ph.D. in History.
Since joining the USSR Foreign Service in 1960 he was stationed in Embassies in India, UK and Kenya. His long-term interest has been United Nations affairs and multilateral negotiations on arms control, security and the environment.
In 1987 he was appointed Chief of the newly established Department of the Environment and Deputy Director for Science and Technology at the Foreign Ministry. His responsibilities included Interagency and inter-Republican coordination, national strategy development, Parliamentary and NGO liaison. In 1990 he led the USSR Delegation at the Preparatory Committee for the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).
He was invited to join the UNCED Secretariat the same year as Head of External Relations, liasing with Geneva Permanent Missions, the UN agencies, Intergovernmental Organizations, NGOs and media, and serving as focal point for Eastern Europe and the CIS. He also chaired the UNCED working party on environmental education, awareness and training for Agenda 21 (Chapter 36) and coordinated the special event at the 1992 Rio Summit on "Education and Ethics".
Following UNCED, he worked for the Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on the Convention to Combat Desertification, until its completion in 1994.
In 1995 he was appointed Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to UNEP and Habitat, and was stationed in Nairobi for five years (he describes them as "his most satisfying").
He received the Meritorious Service Award from the President of the Russian Federation in 2000, to mark a long and distinguished career in diplomacy.
He is currently Senior Researcher at the Diplomatic Academy, Moscow.
His writings have focussed on security and sustainable development issues. His book "The Environmental Consequences of the Arms Race" outlined the negotiating history of the Environmental Modification Convention. He has also lectured at the Diplomatic Academy in Moscow, at UNITAR orientation seminars for Geneva Permanent Missions, the European University and the Peace Research Institute (Oslo).
His wife Marianna Vavilova is Associate Professor in language teaching and a playwright. They have a son and are living in Moscow.
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