NEW YORK, 4 June: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Monday named a former Norwegian development minister and a former senior Somali government official as deputy executive directors of the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF).
Hilde Frafjord Johnson of Norway has been serving as Senior Adviser to the President of the African Development Bank since 2005. Immediately prior to that, she was Norways Minister of International Development, a post she has held twice: from 1997 to 2000, and from 2001 to 2005. She succeeds Rima alah of Jordan – thereby becoming the foremost placed Norwegian in the UN system.
Before taking up her Cabinet post, Ms. Johnson was a member of the Norwegian Parliament for five years (for Kristelig Folkeparti, red.), during which she sat on the Enlarged Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Ms. Johnson served as Co-Chair of the Global Coalition for Africa. She has been a key facilitator in Sudan peace negotiations, and has chaired the Sudan Committee of the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) Partners Forum.
Ms. Johnson has also served on advisory groups in the World Bank, and is the founder of the Utstein Group, a consultation group of six like-minded donor countries. In 2003, she was awarded the “Commitment to Development Award” by the Center for Global Development and Foreign Policy in Washington, D.C.
Ms. Johnson was born in 1963 in Arusha, Tanzania. She holds a bachelors degree in history, political science and social anthropology and a masters degree in social anthropology from the University of Oslo.
Omar Abdi, a Somali-born Canadian citizen, has been serving as Director of UNICEFs Middle East and North Africa Region since August last year. Before joining UNICEF in 1992, he held a number of senior positions in the Somali Government. He succeeds Toshiyuki Niwa of Japan.
Active in over 190 countries, UNICEF advocates for the protection of children’s rights and helps meet their basic needs.
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