Mario Apostolov (Bulgaria/Switzerland) is Regional Adviser at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and teaches a course on the Dynamics of Regional Cooperation and Diplomacy at the International University in Geneva. He has worked for 20 years on trade facilitation, notably in the framework of the UN Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business, coordinates the UN Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia, supports cooperation with the Eurasian Economic Union, several programmes in Southeast Europe, and manages capacity-building on national trade facilitation bodies, Single Window for export and import clearance, regional trade integration, trade facilitation reforms, implementing the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement and other issues. He has published books on trade facilitation, regional cooperation and integration, geopolitics, and other topics, including The Frontier between Christianity and Islam: A Zone of Contact, Conflict or Cooperation, London, Routledge, 2010 and (ed.) Trade Facilitation: The Challenges for Growth and Development, New York and Geneva, UN, 2003). Mr Apostolov has a M.A. from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and a Ph.D. from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies at the University of Geneva.