Chairperson
Ambassador A.K. Abdul Momen.
UN Photo
Dr. A.K. Abdul Momen is the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations. He is currently the Chair of the Second Committee of the UN General Assembly. He is also the Vice President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council for 2011-2012 sessions. In addition, he is the coordinator for NAM Peacebuilding Caucus of the UN.
In 2010, he was the facilitator for the UN Counter-Terrorism Strategy Review as well as the President of the UNICEF Executive Board.
Prior to joining the United Nations, Dr. A.K. Abdul Momen was the Chairman of the Business Administration and Economics Department at the Framingham State University in Massachusetts. He also served as an Economic Adviser, under the Saudi Ministry of Finance and National Economy prior to the bombing in Riyadh in 2003.
Dr. A.K. Abdul Momen was a faculty member in Merrimack College, the Salem State College, the Northeastern University, the University of Massachusetts, Cambridge College and the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and the Massachusetts School of Technology. He also worked as an advisor at the World Bank, Washington D.C.
In early 1990s, Dr. A.K. Abdul Momen started a movement to end trafficking of women and children as well as the abuse of young boys as ‘camel jockey’ in the Gulf countries. His efforts resulted in the repatriation and rehabilitation of some of the victims. His efforts also received bipartisan support in the United States Senate and Congress. Nearly 154 U. S. lawmakers sent letters to the Gulf governments to end abuse of young boys.
The Massachusetts lawmakers repeatedly sent letters to the heads of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC comprising Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) to take actions.
Dr. Abdul Momen also launched a campaign to have a SAARC Resolution and a SAARC Fund for the victims as well as public awareness activities on trafficking. The Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina raised the resolution at the 10th SAARC Heads of Government Summit in Male and it was approved unanimously.
Dr. Momen testimonies in the U.S. Congress and the US Labor Dept in 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1996 (1) to end Asian Slave trade, (2) to end Sexual Exploitation, (3) to stop Sexual Mutilation of young girls, and also (4) against Child Labor resulted in President Bill Clinton’s signing of two bills into laws that made it a criminal offence to have sexual abuse of minor children or genital mutilation of girls by Americans both home and abroad, and in addition, the U. S. government created an Office of Assistant Secretary of State for Trafficking to report and monitor trafficking of women and children.
Prior to coming to the Harvard University as a Ford Foundation and Mason Fellow to pursue higher education in 1978, he worked in the Bangladesh government service.
Professor Momen is a writer and an activist. He has written two books and published over 250 papers and articles. He has a PhD in economics and an MBA in Business Administration from the Northeastern University (Boston) and an MPA in Public Administration, Public Policy and International Economics from the Harvard University (Cambridge), a LLB in Law, an MA in development economics and a BA from the University of Dhaka.
Dr. A.K. Abdul Momen is married and has five children.