Joint Event of ECOSOC and the Peacebuilding Commission. Partnerships for job creation for young people in countries emerging from conflict

Transcription

1 Joint Event of ECOSOC and the Peacebuilding Commission Partnerships for job creation for young people in countries emerging from conflict 4 June 2012, 10:00 a.m. 1:00 p.m., ECOSOC Chamber, United Nations, New York Biographies Opening session Ambassador Miloš Koterec became President of the Economic and Social Council on 10 January 2012 after serving as Senior Vice-President of the Council in Ambassador Koterec has assumed his functions as Permanent Representative of Slovakia to the United Nations in September During his current tenure, he has served in several positions, including as Chairman of the Disarmament and International Security Committee (First Committee) of the 65th session of the General Assembly and as a member of the Search Committee for the selection of Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Prior to his current position, Ambassador Koterec was a Member of the European Parliament from 2004 to July From 2001 to 2004 he worked as Deputy Head of Slovak Mission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels, serving as Charge d`affaires a.i. in From 1999 until 2001, Mr. Koterec worked in the Foreign Ministry s Department for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Disarmament and Council of Europe, first as Chief of the Disarmament Section and in 2000 as Director. From 1995 until 1999 he worked at the Permanent Mission of Slovakia to the United Nations in New York in the rank of First Secretary. He started his civil servant career in 1993

2 and was later appointed Chief of the United Nations Section in the Department of the United Nations and Other International Organizations in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Koterec was an Assistant Lecturer at the Faculty of Electrotechnical Engineering and Informatics at the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava from 1989 until He graduated from the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava in 1986, Faculty of Electrotechnical Engineering and Informatics. Subsequently, in 1992, he graduated from the University of Economy, Faculty of Trade in Bratislava. In 1994, he completed a post-graduate programme in international relations and diplomacy at the Faculty of Law of the Commenius University in the same city. Dr. A.K. Abdul Momen is the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations. He is currently the Chair of the Second Committee of the UN General Assembly. He is also the Vice President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council for sessions. In addition, he is the coordinator for NAM Peacebuilding Caucus of the UN. In 2010, he was the facilitator for the UN Counter-Terrorism Strategy Review as well as the President of the UNICEF Executive Board. Prior to joining the United Nations, Dr. A.K. Abdul Momen was the Chairman of the Business Administration and Economics Department at the Framingham State University in Massachusetts. He also served as an Economic Adviser, under the Saudi Ministry of Finance and National Economy prior to the bombing in Riyadh in Dr. A.K. Abdul Momen was a faculty member in Merrimack College, the Salem State College, the Northeastern University, the University of Massachusetts, Cambridge College and the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and the Massachusetts School of Technology. He also worked as an advisor at the World Bank, Washington D.C.

3 In early 1990s, Dr. A.K. Abdul Momen started a movement to end trafficking of women and children as well as the abuse of young boys as camel jockey in the Gulf countries. His efforts resulted in the repatriation and rehabilitation of some of the victims. His efforts also received bipartisan support in the United States Senate and Congress. Nearly 154 U. S. lawmakers sent letters to the Gulf governments to end abuse of young boys. The Massachusetts lawmakers repeatedly sent letters to the heads of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC comprising Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) to take actions. Dr. Abdul Momen also launched a campaign to have a SAARC Resolution and a SAARC Fund for the victims as well as public awareness activities on trafficking. The Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina raised the resolution at the 10th SAARC Heads of Government Summit in Male and it was approved unanimously. Dr. Momen testimonies in the U.S. Congress and the US Labor Dept in 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1996 (1) to end Asian Slave trade, (2) to end Sexual Exploitation, (3) to stop Sexual Mutilation of young girls, and also (4) against Child Labor resulted in President Bill Clinton s signing of two bills into laws that made it a criminal offence to have sexual abuse of minor children or genital mutilation of girls by Americans both at home and abroad, and in addition, the U. S. government created an Office of Assistant Secretary of State for Trafficking to report and monitor trafficking of women and children. Prior to coming to the Harvard University as a Ford Foundation and Mason Fellow to pursue higher education in 1978, he worked in the Bangladesh government service. Professor Momen is a writer and an activist. He has written two books and published over 250 papers and articles. He has a PhD in economics and an MBA in Business Administration from the Northeastern University (Boston) and an MPA in Public Administration, Public Policy and International Economics from the Harvard University (Cambridge), a LLB in Law, an MA in development economics and a BA from the University of Dhaka. Dr. A.K. Abdul Momen is married and has five children.

4 Keynote address Dr. Asha-Rose Migiro of Tanzania took office as Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations on 1 February She is the third Deputy Secretary-General to be appointed since the post was established in Dr. Migiro served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation from , the first woman in the United Republic of Tanzania to hold that position since its independence in Before that, she was Minister for Community Development, Gender and Children for five years. As Foreign Minister, Dr. Migiro spearheaded Tanzania's engagement in the pursuit of peace, security and development in the Great Lakes Region. She served as Chair of the Council of Ministers' meetings of the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region, a process that culminated into a Pact on Security, Stability and Development in the Great Lakes Region. Dr. Migiro was also Chair of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Ministerial Committee of the Organ on Politics, Defense and Security Cooperation and President of the UN Security Council during its open debate on peace, security and development in the Great Lakes Region. As Chair of the SADC Organ, Dr. Migiro coordinated SADC assistance to the democratic process, including elections, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as well as support for national elections in Zambia and Madagascar. At the time of her appointment, she was chairing an important SADC Ministerial Troika Meeting ahead of the national elections in the Kingdom of Lesotho.

5 Prior to Government service, Dr. Migiro pursued a career in academia. She was a member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Dar -es-salaam, where she rose to the rank of Senior Lecturer. She headed the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law from 1992 to 1994, and the Department of Civil and Criminal Law from 1994 to Her work was published widely in local and international journals. Dr. Migiro served as a member of Tanzania's Law Reform Commission in 1997 and as a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in Panel discussion Mr. Mohammed Abdul Salam is the Country Representative of Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee (BRAC) Liberia. Born in Bangladesh, Mr. Salam has over 24 years of experience at BRAC Bangladesh and BRAC international. His work has revolved around public health, social and organizational capacity building, coordination and program management. In his diverse positions, he has been a key liaison between BRAC and its stakeholders, government representatives, donor agencies, and partner organizations. Prior to start BRAC Liberia in 2008 as the Senior BRAC representative, he served as the BRAC Senior Health Coordinator in Bangladesh and as a Country Health Manager with BRAC Tanzania. Mr. Salam completed both his BA and MA from University of Chittagong in Bangladesh. In his undergraduate work, he earned honors in economics, alongside minors in both sociology and statistics. His graduate work was in economics. He also completed a Master s degree in Primary Health Care Management (MPHM) from Mahidol University in Thailand. His educational background has been complemented by several trainings i.e., Monitoring & Evaluation of social Development Project, University of Wales Swansea, UK; Program for Development Managers Course, AIM, Philippines; Epidemiology & Biostatistics from ICDDR,B; Bangladesh. In addition to his years in Bangladesh, Mr. Salam has briefly lived in Thailand, Philippines, UK, Netherlands, Tanzania, Uganda, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. He has travelled to India, France, Belgium, Germany, Ethiopia, Kenya and Ghana. He has also published several articles on health topics.

6 Mr. Anthony Alimami Koroma currently holds the position of Commissioner within the National Youth Commission of Sierra Leone after holding for 5 years the position of Director of Youth within the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Sierra Leone, being intensively involved in formulating and coordinating the implementation of youth development policies and programmes and managing intensive collaboration with related government departments, United Nations Agencies, NGOs and other international organizations. Mr. Koroma has also been in charged as Head of the Youth Employment Scheme and is the author of numerous works that touch on the role of youth in economic growth, peace and security and the need for social inclusion of youth. Mr. Koroma holds a BSc (Hons) Econ from Fouray Bay College, University of Sierra Leone and a M.A (Economic Policy Management), University of Ghana. Mr. Vincent Rutaremara is the Director of Planning, Cooperative Promotion and Capacity Building, Rwanda Cooperative Agency. Mr. Rutaremara was previously the Country Focal Point for the Cooperative Facility for Africa, Project Coordinator for the Support to Cooperatives Promotion Project and Head of the Cooperatives Promotion Unit of the National Task Force on Cooperatives Promotion. He holds a Bachelor s Degree in Business Administration (BBA-Finance) from the National University of Rwanda and Master of Arts in Cooperatives and Community Development (MA-CCD), Moshi University College of Cooperatives and Business Studies, Tanzania.

7 Ms. Jasmine Nahhas di Florio is the Vice President, Strategy and Partnerships, Education for Employment (EFE). She has 15 years of experience spanning the nonprofit/philanthropy, government and private sectors. Joining EFE in 2006, she worked closely with the Founder and Chairman on EFE s start-up. Ms. Nahhas di Florio started up and ran programs for private donors in Afghanistan: Afghan Women Leaders Connect at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, and Arzu, a carpet social enterprise. Previously a corporate attorney at the international law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, she also was an attorney-advisor at the U.S. Department of Treasury. She consulted the United Nations (UNFIP) on private-public sector partnerships. A Rhodes Scholar, Frank Knox Scholar and Fulbright Scholar, she is a graduate of the University of Alberta, Oxford University and Harvard Law School. Ms. Dominique Bichara, a Belgian and Egyptian national, first joined the World Bank's Legal Department in 1992 where she worked for the Sub-Saharan Africa Region, then became Special Assistant to the World Bank's Senior Vice President and General Counsel. From 1995 to 1999, she worked for the UN FAO's and IFAD's Legal Departments in Rome, Italy, covering countries across regions and specializing in project financing in environmental protection and water management. In 1999, she returned to the World Bank's Legal Department as Senior Counsel for the Maghreb Countries and Lebanon. In 2004, she opened the first World Bank office in Tunisia where she represented the Bank until From 2007 to 2010, she was Senior Counsel for Eastern Europe and Central Asia countries, was the World Bank s focal point for legal and judicial reform in the Middle-East and North Africa and, in parallel, handled a number of project management tasks within the World Bank in the area of legal and judicial reform. She was appointed as the World Bank s Special Representative to the United Nations in New York in March 2010.

8 Before joining the World Bank, she worked as counsel in private practice. She holds a Maîtrise en Droit International from Université d'aix-en-provence, France, a Postgraduate Degree in European and International Law from Institut d'etudes Européennes of Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, and a Certificate in Common Law from the University of Exeter, U.K. Ms. Jenna Slotin currently serves as a Project Director at Building Markets, where she oversees projects in Liberia and Timor-Leste and develops new projects that aim to promote entrepreneurship, SME growth and job creation in Africa and Asia. Prior to joining Building Markets, Jenna co-managed the program on peacebuilding and state fragility at the International Peace Institute. She published several independent reports on the UN s peacebuilding architecture and contributed to publications for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Jenna also spent two years with UNDP in Kosovo working on local governance and inter-agency coordination. She has consulted for the UN Development Group Office in their Crisis and Post-Conflict Cluster as well as for UNICEF. Jenna holds a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University with a concentration in International Security Policy and a BA in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Toronto.