Social, Humanitarian & Cultural Issues (Third Committee)
Chairperson of the 77th Session
Mr. José A. Blanco, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of the Permanent Mission of the Dominican Republic to the United Nations
Ambassador Blanco began his diplomatic career in 2001, when he was appointed First Secretary of the Embassy of the Dominican Republic to the United States of America.
For almost three years, he worked in the areas of economic affairs and trade and served as liaison with the U.S. Congress and its representatives concerning matters of interest to the Dominican Republic. He also participated as in the negotiations of the DR-CAFTA free trade agreement, as part of the Dominican team that supported this important process.
After his initial experience at the bilateral level, he was transferred to the Permanent Mission of the Dominican Republic to the United Nations, where he has worked ever since and has managed to rise through all diplomatic ranks, from First Secretary to his current position as Ambassador, Permanent Representative.
At the Permanent Mission to the United Nations, he has specialized in multilateral diplomacy, which has led him to handle issues of most of the main commissions of the United Nations General Assembly (2nd, 4th and 5th) as well as to represent the Dominican Republic in the ECOSOC (United Nations Economic and Social Council) during its membership, 2010-2012, both in its sessions in New York and Geneva, Switzerland.
During the regular session of 2011 and after the global financial crisis, Ambassador Blanco was appointed Chief Negotiator of resolution 66/188 of the UN General Assembly, which called for addressing excessive price volatility in food and related financial and commodity markets. This resolution, adopted by consensus in December 2011, was promoted by the Dominican Republic and submitted by the Group of 77 and China.
In recent years, Ambassador Blanco has worked closely in the areas of Disaster Risk Reduction and Humanitarian Affairs, being part of the team that advocated for projects such as the HOPEFOR Initiative and the conferences that took place during 2012 and 2013 as part of the commitment assumed by the Dominican Republic.
Ambassador Blanco was a member of the official delegation at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, held in 2011 and 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland and in 2017 in Cancun, Mexico, as well as the United Nations World Humanitarian Summit, held in Istanbul, Turkey, in May 2016. He also served as Head of the Delegation of the General Assembly of the Organization of American States held in Medellin, Colombia, in 2019.
During the period between 2017 and 2019, he served as Acting vice Minister for Bilateral Foreign Policy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Dominican Republic, where he was responsible for coordinating all matters pertaining to the role, among others on the Dominican agenda at the international level. He was part of the technical team for the promotion of the candidacy of the Dominican Republic as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, and consecutively by holding the position of the Coordinator of the Technical Unit for United Nations Security Council affairs.
More recently, as Permanent Representative of the Dominican Republic to the United Nations, Ambassador Blanco co-facilitated the “Political Declaration on the implementation of the United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons” which was adopted in November 2021. He has served as Vice-president of the 76th Session of the General Assembly and is currently Vicechair of the Peacebuilding Commission.
Ambassador Blanco is a career diplomat, bilingual in Spanish and English and holds a degree in business administration from Universidad Iberoamericana. He has completed masters and postgraduate studies at Strayer University and Georgetown University in the United States, respectively. He is married to Mrs. María G. Cáceres, with whom he has two children: María José and José Alejandro.
