Mr. François Pelletier is a demographer with close to 25 years of experience, mainly in the context of the United Nations. He holds a master’s degree in Demography from the University of Montreal. The topic of his memoire was on causes of mortality related to smoking: a longitudinal approach. Over the years, Mr. Pelletier has worked on a wide array of topics and in different settings. For the past 18 years, he has been working at the United Nations Population Division where he has occupied various positions, including Chief of the Mortality Section and Chief of the Population Estimates and Projections Section. He has worked on multiple revisions of the World Population Prospects and World Urbanization Prospects, two of the major publications of the Population Division. Prior to joining the Population Division, Mr. Pelletier also worked for UNFPA in Mozambique including on the census project, and for Celade in the United Nations Regional Commission in Chile. Mr. Pelletier’s expertise and interests are in the area of estimates and projections for both national and urban populations, health and mortality including the measurement of child and adult mortality and on the demographic impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Though most of his work has been within a global perspective, he has developed an expertise for countries in the African and Middle-eastern regions. He is the author and co-author of several publications and has contributed to the writing of multiple reports for the United Nations.