Amara Essy (Côte d'Ivoire)
Elected President of the forty-ninth session of the General Assembly
Amara Essy, who was elected as President of the forty-ninth regular session of the General assembly, has served as the Foreign Minister of Côte d'Ivoire since November 1990.
The new Assembly President has had an extensive diplomatic career during which he served as his country's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 7 August 1981 to November 1990, functioning concurrently as the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Côte d'Ivoire in Argentina and Cuba with residence in New York.
As Côte d'Ivoire's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Mr. Essy served as Vice-President of the forty-third session of the General Assembly from September 1988 to September 1989 and as President of the Security Council in January 1990. He was also Chairman of the "Group of 77" of developing nations in Geneva from January 1977 to January 1978.
Mr. Essy has participated in many sessions of the General Assembly as well as several sectoral conferences, including the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (Caracas, Geneva, New York), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) IV and UNCTAD V in Nairobi and Manila respectively, the Conference of the International Year of Women in Mexico, the Conference on Codification of International Law in Vienna and many sessions, the Commission on Human Rights as well as those of the Economic and Social Council and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
He has also participated in many international conferences held by the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Non-Aligned Movement.
From 1978 to 1981, Mr. Essy was the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Côte d'Ivoire to the Swiss Confederation at Berne, and prior to that, he served as the Permanent Representative of Côte d'Ivoire to the United Nations Office in Geneva and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in Vienna, positions to which he was appointed in 1978.
From 1973 to 1975, Mr. Essy was a Counsellor at the Permanent Mission of Côte d'Ivoire to the United Nations in New York and served as a First Counsellor at the Embassy of Côte d'Ivoire in Brazil from 1971 to 1973.
He had become the Chief of the Division of Economic Relations at the Central Department of the foreign ministry of Côte d'Ivoire in 1970.
In recognition of his distinguished service to his country, Mr. Essy has been awarded numerous decorations, including the National order of Côte d'Ivoire.
Mr. Essy holds a degree in public law and a diploma of high-level studies, also in public law. He also holds a diploma from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Switzerland.
Mr. Essy was born on 20 December 1944 in Bouake, Côte d'Ivoire. He is married and has six children.
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