Biographical Note

NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF GRENADA PRESENTS CREDENTIALS

 

(Based on information provided by the Protocol and Liaison Service.)

The new Permanent Representative of Grenada to the United Nations, Dessima M. Williams, presented her credentials to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today.

Ms. Williams’ diplomatic service prior to her new assignment includes representing her country as chief non-governmental organization (NGO) delegate to the Special Committee on Decolonization’s Caribbean Regional Seminar in Saint George’s, Grenada, in June 2007.

She served also as Grenada’s NGO observer/delegate to various General Assembly sessions over the last nine years; NGO delegate to the 1995 Fourth United Nations Conference on Women and NGO Forum in Beijing; and NGO delegate to the World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen, Denmark, also in 1995.

Ms. Williams has extensive academic experience, as an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at Brandeis University, from 2003 to 2006; visiting Professor at Florida Atlantic University in 2002; and Jacob Ziskind Visiting Associate Professor of Sociology, also at Brandeis University, from 1992 to 1995.  She is the author of a forthcoming report, Gender Dimensions of HIV/AIDS in Grenada, and was a co-author of a multi-volume report to the United Kingdom Department for International Development, Realization of Human Rights in the Caribbean Territories, in 2002.

Ms. Williams serves on the board of the Inter-Agency Group of Development Organizations in Grenada, and the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C., among others.

She received a doctorate in international relations and a master’s degree in international development from the American University in Washington, D.C., in 1995, in addition to a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the University of Minnesota in 1976.

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