Ameerah Haq made UN under secy general
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appointed Ameerah Haq of Bangladesh as an Under-Secretary-General for the Department of Field Support.
She is currently serving as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT) since 2009, according to a UN announcement made yesterday.
With the appointment, Ameerah Haq, a seasoned and skilled negotiator as well as consensus-builder, became the highest-ranking Bangladeshi official at the United Nations.
She previously held the positions of Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General as well as United Nations Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan. Before that she served as Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General and United Nations Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan.
She also held the posts of Deputy Assistant Administrator and Deputy Director, Bureau of Crisis Prevention & Recovery, at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Headquarters in New York.
Ameerah has overall 37 years of career in the United Nations (19 years in the field and 18 years at the headquarters). She brings to the position extensive management and operational experience, supporting complex mission deployments and transition activities, including crisis management, Ban’s office said.
She was formerly a Deputy Assistant Administrator and Deputy Director, Bureau of Crisis Prevention & Recovery, at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Headquarters in New York.
Mother of two children, Ameerah joined the UN in 1976 as a junior professional officer in Indonesian capital Jakarta and was transferred to Afghanistan as an assistant resident representative in 1978.
She completed her Bachelor of Arts from Western College in Oxford, Ohio and later studied community organisation and planning and in business administration from Western College for Women, Columbia University and New York University.
Meanwhile, the UN Secretary-General has selected two other veteran UN staffers along with Ameerah to fill senior positions in the organisation, dealing with management and internal oversight services.
They are Yukio Takasu of Japan, who is currently serving as the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Human Security, and is selected as Under-Secretary-General for Management, and David Muchoki Kanja of Kenya, who is selected for the newly created position of Assistant Secretary-General for the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS).
Yesterday’s announcements are part of an ongoing process initiated by Ban prior to beginning of his second five-year term at the helm of the UN in January, to try to balance the need for fresh perspectives with the need for maintaining continuity of purpose, said a press release of UN Press Centre.
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