Press Release
United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women
New York, January 29, 1996
Angela E.V. King, appointed new Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women
New York (29 January) - Angela E. V. King has been named Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) of the Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development effective 1 February 1996.
Ms. King brings to the post, which is responsible for the follow-up to the Beijing Conference and for managing the central United Nations programme for the advancement of women, a wide experience in the economic, social and political work of the United Nations, in administration and in advancement of women. Ms. King will work in close cooperation with the recently designated Senior Adviser of the Secretary-General on the implementation of the Beijing Conference, Assistant Secretary-General Rosario Green.
Since 1987, Ms. King has served at the director level in the Office of Human Resources Management, as Director of Recruitment and Placement and Director of Staff Administration and Training. Most recently she was deputy to the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Resources Management and Director of the Operational Services Division. As such she worked closely with the focal point for the improvement of the status of women in the Secretariat on such issues as special measures for women and sexual harassment. She represented the Office at the Fourth World Conference on Women at Beijing in 1995.
From 1992-1994, she was on assignment as chief of mission of the United Nations Observer Mission in South Africa (UNOMSA), one of only two women who have headed a United Nations peace and security mission.
Ms. King joined the United Nations Secretariat in 1966 from the Permanent Mission of Jamaica, where she was one of the first two women foreign service officers posted after Jamaica joined the United Nations and where she worked on matters relating to human rights and social development.
In her early career in the Secretariat, she worked in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs in the preparation of the Report of the World Social Situation, and later in the Branch for the Promotion of Equality between Men and Women where she participated in the first United Nations Conference on Women in Mexico City in 1975 and the second United Nations Conference on Women in Copenhagen in 1980. She has been involved with programme planning and coordination and was the first chief of the Central Evaluation Unit.
The new Director of the DAW has been active in work for the advancement of women in the United Nations Secretariat and was a founding member of the ad hoc Group on Equal Rights for Women and is a member of the High-level Steering Committee on Improving the Status of Women in the Secretariat.
Ms. King has a BA (Hons) in History from the University College of the West Indies and an MA in Educational Sociology and Administration from the University of London, as well as further graduate studies in educational sociology at New York University.
Ms. King has one son.
