Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman
USG Jeffrey Feltman
Jeffrey Feltman of the United States assumed the post of Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs on 2 July 2012. He was appointed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Before joining the United Nations, Mr. Feltman served as US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs with the rank of Career Minister.
Mr. Feltman served as United States Ambassador to the Republic of Lebanon until 2008, previously heading the Coalition Provisional Authority’s office in the Irbil province of Iraq, acting simultaneously as Deputy Regional Coordinator. He served until 2003 as Acting Principal Officer at the United States Consulate-General in Jerusalem and until 2001 as the Ambassador's Special Assistant on Peace Process issues in the United States Embassy of Tel Aviv. Prior to this, he was Chief of the Political and Economic Section at the United States Embassy in Tunisia after having covered economic issues in the Gaza strip until 1998 at the United States Embassy in Tel Aviv.
Mr. Feltman served until 1993 in the Office of Deputy Secretary Eagleburger as Special Assistant coordinating United States assistance to countries of Eastern and Central Europe, and acted as economic officer at the United States Embassy in Hungary till 1991, after completing his posting as a consular officer in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Mr. Feltman who speaks Arabic, French and Hungarian received his Bachelor’s degree in history and fine arts from Ball State University and his Master's degree in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
Born in 1959, Mr. Feltman is married.
Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Tayé-Brook Zerihoun
ASG Tayé-Brook Zerihoun
Tayé-Brook Zerihoun of Ethiopia was appointed Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs on 28 April 2010 by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Mr. Zerihoun replaces Mr. Haile Menkerios, who has been appointed as Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sudan for a one-year period.
Mr. Zerihoun brings to this position a wealth of experience and administrative skills from his various assignments with the United Nations since March 1981. He has worked on special political questions in New York, in different capacities and areas: decolonization, trusteeship, conflict prevention and resolution, peacemaking, peacebuilding and peacekeeping. Between 1995 and 2003, he served initially as Deputy and then Director of the Africa I Division in the Department of Political Affairs, with responsibility for the countries of the Horn of Africa, Great Lakes and Southern Africa regions, as well as regional organizations including the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
Since April 2008, Mr. Zerihoun has served as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Cyprus and Head of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP). He was the Acting Special Representative of UNMIS from October 2006 until October 2007, where he also served as the Secretary-General’s Principal Deputy Representative since August 2004 and Chief United Nations Mediator for the Darfur Peace Talks in support of the efforts of Special Envoy Jan Eliasson.
Mr. Zerihoun completed both his undergraduate and graduate studies in New York, and holds a master of philosophy degree in comparative politics from Columbia University.
Mr. Zerihoun was born on 13 December 1942. He is married and has four children.
Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Oscar Fernández-Taranco
ASG Oscar Fernandez-Taranco
Oscar Fernandez-Taranco of Argentina assumed the position of Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs on 1 July 2009, having been appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. He is responsible, inter alia, for overseeing the regional divisions of the Department of Political Affairs working on the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East and West Asia, as well as the Decolonization Unit and the Division for Palestinian Rights.
Mr. Fernandez-Taranco came to his current position with a wealth of previous experience, having worked in the United Nations system for over 25 years, both at headquarters and in the field, managing increasingly complex development, political, peacebuilding and humanitarian operations in the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa and Europe. From 1994 to 1998, Mr. Fernandez-Taranco served as Deputy Special Representative of the Administrator in the West Bank and Gaza Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People. He was also the Deputy Assistant Administrator and Deputy Regional Director in the Regional Bureau for Arab States in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for five years. From 1998 to 2001, he served as Resident Representative, United Nations Resident Coordinator and Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Haiti. Immediately prior to this appointment, Mr. Fernandez-Taranco had been serving as Resident Coordinator in the United Republic of Tanzania, leading the United Nations reform initiative of “Delivering as One”. He had earlier served as a Country Officer in the United Nations Capital Development Fund and as Country Officer in the Latin American and Caribbean Division of the World Food Programme. He started his career in the United Nations as a United Nations Volunteer in Benin, after a stint with Oxfam America.
Mr. Fernandez-Taranco was educated at Cornell University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied first economics and then urban-regional economic planning. Born in 1957, he is married and has two children.
Office of the Under-Secretary-General
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Chief of Office a.i., Darko Mocibob
Africa I Division (Southern and Eastern Africa)
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Director, Sam Ibok
Africa II Division (West, Central and Northern Africa)
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Director, João Honwana
Americas Division
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Director, Martha Doggett
Europe Division
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Director, Elizabeth Spehar
Asia and Pacific Division
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Director, Mari Yamashita
Middle East and West Asia Division
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Director, Antonella Caruso
Electoral Assistance Division
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Director, Craig Jenness
Division for Palestinian Rights
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Officer-in-Charge, Wolfgang Grieger
Policy and Mediation Division
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Director, Levent Bilman
Security Council Affairs Division
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Director, Movses Abelian
Decolonization Unit
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Chief, Laura Vaccari
Executive Office
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Executive Officer, Ann de la Roche