Mark Rainer Bowden CMG was the United Nations Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan from September 2012 until February 2017. [1] [2]
Bowden worked in many fields including humanitarian coordination in conflict and post conflict countries, development and recovery assistance. Prior to his current appointment, he had been United Nations Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia. [3]
Previously, he worked as Director of Civil Affairs in the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS). He served as Conflict Management Adviser for Africa in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of United Kingdom from 1999 to 2001.
Prior to that, he worked as Country Director in Bangladesh and Head of Regional Office for East Africa and Africa Director at Save the Children Fund. [4]
He was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the 2017 Birthday Honours. [5]
Bowden was born in 1951 and has two daughters. He obtained a B.A. in psychology and economics from Brunel University.
The Battle of Mogadishu, also known as the Black Hawk Down incident, was part of Operation Gothic Serpent. It was fought on 3–4 October 1993, in Mogadishu, Somalia, between forces of the United States—supported by UNOSOM II—and Somali militiamen loyal to Mohamed Farrah Aidid. It was part of the broader Somali Civil War, which had intensified since 1991 and threatened famine; the UN had become engaged to provide food aid, but eventually shifted their mission to establish democracy and restore a secure government.
Humanitarian aid workers belonging to United Nations organisations, PVOs / NGOs or the Red Cross / Red Crescent have traditionally enjoyed both international legal protection, and de facto immunity from attack by belligerent parties. However, attacks on humanitarian workers have occasionally occurred, and became more frequent since the 1990s and 2000s. In 2017, the Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD) documented 139 humanitarian workers killed in intentional attacks out of the estimated global population of 569,700 workers. In every year since 2013, more than 100 humanitarian workers were killed. This is attributed to a number of factors, including the increasing number of humanitarian workers deployed, the increasingly unstable environments in which they work, and the erosion of the perception of neutrality and independence. In 2012 road travel was seen to be the most dangerous context, with kidnappings of aid workers quadrupling in the last decade, reaching more aid workers victims than any other form of attack.
Danish Refugee Council (DRC) is a private Danish humanitarian nonprofit organization, founded in 1956. It serves as an umbrella organization for 33 member organizations.
Afghanaid is an international humanitarian and development NGO that has worked alongside Afghan communities — currently including over one million adults and children — for over three decades. It was founded in the United Kingdom in 1983, following the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan to provide emergency relief to those fleeing from Afghanistan to Pakistan and those in need of medical attention. Its work soon shifted from emergency aid to include community-focused long-term development. Its current work includes building basic services, improving livelihoods, strengthening the rights of women and children, helping communities protect against natural disasters, and respond to humanitarian emergencies. Afghanaid particularly targets vulnerable households in Afghanistan, including those headed by women, or with elderly, chronically ill or disabled family members.
Mukesh Kapila M.D. CBE is an author, medical doctor, professor and senior humanitarian.
Nicolas Bwakira was a Burundian diplomat, international civil servant and pan-africanist. During his long and exemplary career, Ambassador Nicolas Bwakira took on senior roles and responsibilities at various institutions, including the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the University of South Africa (UNISA), the African Union, the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) and the Crisis Management Initiative (CMI). Ambassador Bwakira fought the good fight as a pan-Africanist and international civil servant in the service of Africa and its people, especially for those in Namibia, Angola, Somalia and, more recently, the Lake Chad Basin. The quest for peace was his lifelong passion. From the time of his posting in Angola in 1976, he developed a special connection with southern African countries, among which Namibia. From 1976 to 1990, Namibian refugees and Namibia’s independence featured prominently in his professional career. In his role as Coordinator for the return of Namibian exiles, he was instrumental in negotiating a total blanket amnesty with the apartheid government as a condition for the return of Namibian exiles. Later, as Director for Africa, he negotiated a total blanket amnesty with the apartheid government, as a pre-condition of the return of South African exiles members of liberation movements.
David James Shearer is a New Zealand United Nations worker and politician. He was a member of the New Zealand Parliament for the Labour Party from 2009 to 2016, serving as Leader of the Opposition from 2011 to 2013.
Ross Stewart Mountain has spent most of his career in the service of the United Nations working on humanitarian, recovery, development and peacekeeping operations in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and the Pacific as well as assignments based in Geneva, Switzerland promoting non-governmental action and managing UN humanitarian operations.
Sir Charles James Petrie, 6th Baronet, OBE is a United Nations diplomat. A former investment banker and management consultant, he then worked for the United Nations, before going independent.
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Michael Keating is the Executive Director of the European Institute of Peace, an independent conflict resolution organisation based in Brussels with activities in fifteen countries in Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Latin America. He was the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Somalia and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) from January 2016 until September 2018.
Toby Lanzer, a national of the United Kingdom, is a former assistant secretary-general of the United Nations who recently served as Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General in the UN's political office in Afghanistan, UNAMA. Secretary-General António Guterres appointed Lanzer to this position in January 2017, before which he served the United Nations in various peacekeeping, humanitarian and development roles:
Sir Nicholas Peter Kay is a British diplomat. He has served as the British ambassador to Afghanistan, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. From 2013 to 2016 he was the United Nations Special Representative for Somalia.
Philippe Lazzarini is a national of Switzerland and Italy who has been serving as Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) since 2020.
Sir Mark Andrew Lowcock is a British economist and accountant who served as the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator between 2017 and 2021. Prior to his appointment by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on 12 May 2017, Lowcock was the Permanent Secretary of the Department for International Development (DFID) from June 2011 to September 2017. He is currently a Visiting Professor in Practice at the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics and Distinguished Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC. He is also a Trustee/Director of The Howard Partnership Trust, a multi-academy trust of schools in Surrey.
Nicholas Haysom is a South African lawyer and diplomat who focuses on democratic governance, constitutional and electoral reforms and the reconciliation and peace process. Since 2021, he has been serving as the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres' Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).
Edward Kallon, is the United Nations Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria. Kallon is also the Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme in Nigeria (UNDP). He held a similar position for the past three years in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, where he was also the Representative of the United Nations Population Fund in Jordan (UNFPA) and the Designated Official for Security.
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