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Kofi
Annan, the seventh
Secretary-General of the United Nations who was
Under-Secretary-General for Peace-keeping Operations at the
time of his appointment, brings to the position a wealth of
experience and expertise gained through more than three
decades of service with the world Organization. A national
of Ghana who is fluent in English, French and several
African languages, he was appointed on 17 December by the
General Assembly to serve a term of office from 1 January
1997 through 31 December 2001.
Mr. Annan has had a remarkably varied United Nations career,
focusing not only on questions of management --
administration, budget, finance and personnel -- but also
refugee issues and peace-keeping. He has also carried out a
number of sensitive diplomatic assignments, including
negotiating the repatriation of over 900 international staff
and the release of Western hostages in Iraq following that
country's invasion of Kuwait in 1990; initiating discussions
on the "oil-for-food" formula to ease the humanitarian
crisis in Iraq; and overseeing the transition from the
United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in former
Yugoslavia to the multinational Implementation Force (IFOR)
led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
following the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement.
Complementing this
strong grounding in management and in peace-keeping -- two
areas of paramount importance to the future of the
Organization at a critical juncture in its existence -- is
the new Secretary-General's strong commitment to economic
development and social justice. As he stated in an address
to the General Assembly following his appointment, "a new
understanding of peace and security must emerge". The world
is beginning to recognize, he said, that conflict has many
roots, that peace rests on economic and social stability,
and that "intolerance, injustice and oppression -- and their
consequences -- respect no national frontiers". Similarly,
he continued, "we now know more than ever that sustainable
economic development is not merely a matter of projects and
statistics. It is, above all, a matter of people -- real
people with basic needs: food, clothing, shelter and medical
care".
As the first
Secretary-General to emerge from the ranks of the
international civil service, and having served in Addis
Ababa, Cairo, Geneva, Ismailia (Egypt) and at the United
Nations Headquarters in New York, Mr. Annan also has
intimate knowledge of the Organization's activities in the
field, at the grass-roots level, as well as of the views of
staff at all levels, at duty stations throughout the
world.
United Nations
Career
Most recently, from 1
March 1993 until his appointment as Secretary- General --
except for the period from 1 November 1995 to March 1996,
when he served as Special Representative of the
Secretary-General to the former Yugoslavia -- Mr. Annan
served as Under-Secretary-General for Peace-keeping
Operations, and for a year before that, as Assistant
Secretary-General for Peace-keeping Operations. In these
positions, he helped to formulate new approaches to the
complex uncertainties of a post-cold-war world marked by
unprecedented levels of international cooperation, as well
as widespread strife fuelled by fierce assertions of
national and ethnic identities. Throughout this volatile
period, Mr. Annan worked to strengthen the capacity of the
Organization to undertake both traditional peace-keeping
missions and multifunctional operations, and to shoulder new
tasks in the area of international peace and security such
as "preventive deployment".
To cope with the
dramatic growth in the number of operations -- 28 of the 43
operations in United Nations history have been mounted since
1989, the majority of them since 1993 -- Mr. Annan oversaw
the creation of a "situation centre" that monitors United
Nations peace-keeping operations around the clock. He also
concentrated on enhancing the Organization's readiness for
peace-keeping, canvassing Member States for commitments on
"stand-by arrangements" for the provision of troops,
equipment and other resources. As of 2 June 1997, 66 Member
States had confirmed their willingness to provide stand-by
resources totalling some 87,000 personnel.
Mr. Annan also worked
with Member States to improve "response time" by taking
steps towards the creation of a Rapidly Deployable Mission
Headquarters, with earmarked Secretariat and other
personnel, which became functional in 1997. And to ensure
that the lessons of peace-keeping experiences, successful
and otherwise, are assimilated and applied, Mr. Annan
created a "Lessons Learned" Unit within the Department of
Peace-keeping Operations. The Unit's activities will soon be
broadened to encompass lessons learned by other departments
-- including the Departments of Political Affairs,
Humanitarian Affairs, and Public Information -- in the area
of peace and security.
As Secretary-General,
Mr. Annan has also emphasized his commitment to engaging
with Member States in a dialogue about the best possible use
of the tools of peace-keeping, preventive diplomacy and
post-conflict peace-building.
The
Secretary-General's managerial portfolio is similarly
extensive, and Mr. Annan has been deeply involved in the
full range of questions now at the forefront of efforts to
reform and streamline the Organization, a priority for which
he appointed Maurice Strong as Executive Coordinator for
United Nations Reform in January 1997. His United Nations
postings in the management area include Assistant
Secretary-General for Programme Planning, Budget and Finance
and Controller (1990-1992); Assistant Secretary-General in
the Office of Human Resources Management and Security
Coordinator for the United Nations system (1987-1990);
Director of Budget in the Office of Financial Services
(1984- 1987); Deputy Director of Administration and Head of
Personnel at the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva (1980- 1983).
His first assignment with the United Nations was in 1962 as
an Administrative Officer and Budget Officer at the World
Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva.
As Secretary-General,
Mr. Annan intends to place particular emphasis on achieving
consensus among Member States on the role the United Nations
should play in its many fields of endeavour. As he said in
the press conference following his appointment, "We need to
encourage Member States to develop the sustained will to
support the Organization". Equally important, he added, is
the need to "demystify the United Nations and not make it so
bureaucratic and distant from the average person. We should
bring the Organization closer to the people". Another one of
Mr. Annan's principal priorities is to undertake major
initiatives to resolve the Organization's financial
crisis.
In addition to his
regular posts, Mr. Annan has carried out a number of special
assignments. From 1 November 1995 to March 1996, he served
as Special Representative of the Secretary-General to the
former Yugoslavia and, in this context, as Special Envoy to
NATO. In this capacity, following the signing of the Dayton
Peace Agreement in December 1995, he coordinated the United
Nations role in achieving a smooth transition in Bosnia and
Herzegovina from UNPROFOR to the NATO-led IFOR. He also
supervised the establishment of the three successor
peace-keeping operations in the former
Yugoslavia.
In 1990, following the
invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, Mr. Annan was sent by the
Secretary-General to facilitate the repatriation of more
than 900 international staff and to conduct negotiations for
the release of Western hostages. While there, Mr. Annan
helped focus attention on the plight of more than 500,000
Asians stranded in Iraq and Kuwait as a result of the
hostilities. Subsequently, Mr. Annan was the first to
encourage the Government of Iraq to discuss the sale of oil
to fund purchases of humanitarian aid, and he led the first
United Nations team negotiating with
Iraq towards this end.
That initiative has since borne fruit with the 1996
agreement between the Government of Iraq and the United
Nations on implementation of the "oil-for-food" formula
under Security Council resolution 986 (1995).
Apart from his
official duties, Mr. Annan has long been involved in the
areas of education and the welfare and protection of
international staff. He has contributed to the work of the
Appointment and Promotion Board and the Senior Review Group
(both of which he chaired); to the Administrative,
Management and Financial Board; to the Secretary-General's
Task Force for Peace-keeping; and to the United Nations
Joint Staff Pension Fund. He also served as Chairman of the
Board of Trustees of the United Nations International School
in New York (1987-1995) and as a Governor of the
International School in Geneva (1981-1983).
Background and
Education
Mr. Annan studied at
the University of Science and Technology at Kumasi, Ghana,
and completed his undergraduate work in economics at
Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota (1961). From 1961
to 1962, he undertook graduate studies in economics at the
Institut universitaire des hautes études
internationales in Geneva. As a 1971-1972 Sloan Fellow at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he received
a Master of Science degree in Management. In a two-year
break from United Nations service from 1974 to 1976, Mr.
Annan served as the Managing Director of the Ghana Tourist
Development Company, serving concurrently on its Board and
on the Ghana Tourist Control Board. Currently, the
Secretary-General serves on the Board of Trustees of
Macalester College, which in 1994 awarded him its Trustee
Distinguished Service Award in honour of his service to the
international community. He also serves on the Board of
Trustees of the Institute for the Future, in Menlo Park,
California.
Mr. Annan was born on
8 April 1938, in Kumasi, Ghana. He is married to Nane Annan,
a lawyer who is now an artist. They have three
children.
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