Robert (Bob) T. Harris is a well-known spokesperson for civil society and non-government organisations, and for many years represented them in a wide range of global institutions, including as former president of the Conferences of NGOs at the UN and UNESCO, secretary-general of the World Confederation of Organisations of the Teaching Profession (WCOTP), and chair of an OECD Working Group on education, training and employment policies.
In 1993, he co-founded Education International, which now represents more than 32 million educators in 178 countries.
A life member of the Australian Education Union, Bob regularly appears as an invited speaker on a range of education and public policy issues. He has edited and contributed to UNESCO, OECD and Education International Research Institute publications. In 2016, Bob and his wife, Yuko Matsuoka Harris, established the Swiss-based Magic Libraries Foundation to promote libraries for children in disadvantaged countries and regions, and to train translators in minority languages.