UNRWA – Deputy appointment – Press release

SECRETARY-GENERAL APPOINTS KAREN ABUZAYD AS DEPUTY COMMISSIONER-

GENERAL OF UNRWA

Biographical Note 

The following statement was issued today by the Office of the Spokesman for Secretary-General Kofi Annan:

The Secretary-General has decided to appoint Karen AbuZayd of the United States, as Deputy Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Her office will be based in Gaza.

Ms. AbuZayd has worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for 19 years, and is currently Regional Representative for the United States and Caribbean. She has served, inter alia, as Chef de Cabinet to the High Commissioner, Sadako Ogata. She also served as Deputy Director of the Division of Programme and Operational Support, overseeing programme and technical planning, policy development and emergency response. She was Chief of Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as in Sierra Leone. She has also served as Head of the South Africa Repatriation and Kenya-Somalia cross-border units at UNHCR Headquarters.

In the 1970s, Ms. AbuZayd taught Middle Eastern and African politics at Makerere University in Uganda and at Juba University in southern Sudan.

A graduate from De Pauw University in Indiana, she holds a M.A. in Islamic Studies from Canada's McGill University. Ms. AbuZayd is married and has two sons.

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