On 12 March 2015 United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the appointment of Miroslav Jenča of Slovakia as Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs.
Mr. Jenča succeeds Jens Toyberg-Frandzen of Denmark who was appointed Assistant Secretary-General ad interim for Political Affairs in November 2014. The Secretary-General is grateful to Mr. Toyberg-Frandzen for his leadership and acumen in the position.
As Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Mr. Jenča will be responsible, inter alia, for overseeing the divisions in the Department of Political Affairs dealing with the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and the Middle East and West Asia, as well as the Decolonization Unit and the Division for Palestinian Rights.
Mr. Jenča has served as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, since 2008. He was previously Director of the Office of the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Slovakia, as well as Ambassador and Head of Mission to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Centre in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. He served as Ambassador and Representative of Slovakia to the Political and Security Committee of the European Union and Ambassador of Slovakia to Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia, including positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovakia and diplomatic missions in Ireland and Mexico.
Mr. Jenča holds a Doctor of Law degree from Comenius University in Bratislava. He studied foreign trade at the University of Economics in Bratislava, diplomacy and international relations at Moscow State Institute of International Relations, and diplomacy at Stanford University.
Born in 1965, he is married and has two children.
