Ambassador Darja Bavdaz Kuret
As the Special Advisor to the President of 76 th session of the UN General Assembly Ambassador Bavdaz Kuret will focus on Gender equality issues, initiatives and actions to strengthen gender equality and parity. The state of mind of Gender equality will be incorporated in the Presidency of Hope, namely into its priorities “Recovering Covid 19, Rebuilding Sustainability, Responding to the Needs of the Planet, Respecting the Rights of All and reforming the UN.
Darja Bavdaz Kuret is a Slovenian diplomat, social scientist and woman’s right advocate. Her latest diplomatic appointment was Permanent Representative of Slovenia to the UN in New York from 2017-2021.
Born in Slovenia in 1956 , Darja Bavdaz Kuret graduated with a degree in political science and international relations from the University of Ljubljana. From 1995 to 1999, she was Ambassador of Israel, including accreditation for the Palestinian Authorities. She then headed the department for Analyses and Planning at the Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs before serving as Ambassador to Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Latvia (2002-2006). From 2006 to 2008, she was Secretary General of the Bled Strategic Forum organized by the Slovenian Foreign Ministry and the Center for European Perspective. In 2008, during Slovenia’s presidency of the European Union, she served as Chair of the EU Capital working group on Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Belarus.
From 2009 to 20013, Bavdaz Kuret was Ambassador to Hungry and Bulgaria before serving as Ambassador to India (2013-2015) including accreditation to Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka (2014-2015). She then returned to Slovenia where she was State Secretary from 2015-2017 responsible for multilateral affairs and development cooperation.
