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Acting on the nomination of
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the UN General Assembly unanimously elected
Achim Steiner as the Executive Director of UNEP on 16 March 2006 for a
four-year term, effective 15 June 2006. Mr. Steiner becomes the fifth
Executive Director in UNEP's history.
Before joining UNEP, Mr. Steiner
served as Director General of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) from
2001 to 2006. IUCN is widely regarded as one of the most influential and
highly respected organizations in the field of conservation, environment
and natural resources management. He held responsibility for the
management and oversight of 1,000 staff located in 42 countries
Mr. Steiner's professional track record in the fields of sustainable
development policy and environmental management, his first-hand knowledge
of civil society, governmental and international organizations, as well as
his global experience spanning five Continents, make him an excellent
choice to lead the United Nations Environment Programme.
His professional career has included assignments with governmental,
non-governmental and international organizations in different parts of the
world. In Washington, where he was Senior Policy Advisor of IUCN's Global
Policy Unit, he led the development of new partnerships between the
environment community, the World Bank and the United Nations system.
In Southeast Asia he worked as
Chief Technical Advisor on a programme for the sustainable management
of Mekong River watersheds and community-based natural resources
management. In 1998 he was appointed Secretary-General of the World
Commission on Dams, based in South Africa, where he managed a global
programme of work to bring together the public sector, civil society
and the private sector in a global policy process on dams and
development.
He worked both at grassroots level
as well as at the highest levels of international policy-making to
address the interface between environmental sustainability, social
equity and economic development.
Mr. Steiner, a German national,
was born in Brazil in 1961, where he lived for ten years. His
educational background includes a BA from the University of Oxford as
well as an MA from the University of London with specialization in
development economics, regional planning, and international
development and environment policy. He also studied at the German
Development Institute in Berlin as well as the Harvard Business
School.
Mr. Steiner serves on a number of
international advisory boards, including the China Council for
International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED).
(Source: United
Nations Environment Programme)
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