SECRETARY-GENERAL APPOINTS CAROLYN MCASKIE OF CANADA AS ASSISTANT SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR PEACEBUILDING SUPPORT

Biographical Note

SECRETARY-GENERAL APPOINTS CAROLYN MCASKIE OF CANADA AS ASSISTANT

SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR PEACEBUILDING SUPPORT

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced today the appointment of Carolyn McAskie of Canada as Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support.

Ms. McAskie was appointed Special Representative of the Secretary General and Head of the UN Peacekeeping Operation in Burundi in June 2004.  Her previous appointment (1999-2004) was Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator at the UN Secretariat in New York, serving as Emergency Relief Coordinator a.i., for the period 1999 to January 2001.  Prior to her appointment with the United Nations, Ms. McAskie had a 30- year career with the Federal Government of Canada, in the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).  Her last positions were Vice-President for Africa and the Middle East Programmes and Vice-President of CIDA’s Multilateral Programmes Branch, where she held the rank of Assistant Deputy Minister (equivalent to Deputy Permanent Secretary) from 1993 until 1999.

Earlier posts with CIDA include:  Director-General, International Financial Institutions; Director-General, Multilateral Technical Cooperation (United Nations and Commonwealth Programmes); and in the Canadian High Commission in Kenya.  She has also served in the Commonwealth Secretariat in London as Assistant Director of Finance and Personnel (1975-1980), and as Canadian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and the Maldives (1986-1989).

Throughout her career, Ms. McAskie has played a prominent role in multilateral negotiations as a Canadian delegate to the UN Funds and Programmes and in the Governing Councils of the International Financial Institutions, including the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Global Environmental Facility.  She served as a member of the Facilitation Team of the Burundi Peace Process in Arusha (1999) under the late Julius Nyerere, the former President of the United Republic of Tanzania, and as Humanitarian Envoy of the UN Secretary General for the humanitarian crisis in Côte d’Ivoire (2003).

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*     This supersedes Press Release SG/A/874-BIO/3572 of 26 May 2004.

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