Farewell , Koffi Annan diplomat extrordinare
What you need to know:
- He served two terms as the chief UN administrator (1997-2006), having risen through UN ranks, beginning as an administrative and budget officer with the World Health Organization in Geneva in 1962.
The seventh UN secretary general Kofi Annan is, alas, dead – peacefully passing on last Saturday after a short illness. Annan shared the 2001 Nobel Peace prize with the UN for their work for a better-organized and more peaceful world.
He served two terms as the chief UN administrator (1997-2006), having risen through UN ranks, beginning as an administrative and budget officer with the World Health Organization in Geneva in 1962.
He later served with the Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa; the UN Emergency Force-II in Ismailia; the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva; Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping and the Secretary General’s Special Representative to the former Yugoslavia (1995-1996). Then he became the UN’s first Black African secretary-general.
All in all, Annan is described as “a global statesman; a deeply-committed internationalist who fought throughout his life for a fairer and more peaceful world; an ardent champion of peace, sustainable development, human rights and the rule of law…”
Apart from the 2001 Nobel Prize, Annan was awarded an Honorary Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George Knighthood by Queen Elizabeth in 2007.
The world’s number one diplomat-in-retirement nonetheless went on to serve nations and mankind in ways more than one. In this, he was facilitated by his own Kofi Annan Foundation, established in 2007, and as chairman of “The Elders”, the Ggroup founded in 2007 by the iconic leader Nelson Mandela.
We at The Citizen may not have a prestigious, worldly award for the late Kofi Annan, and can only offer sincere condolences to the family and relatives he has left behind. In any case, we wish him peaceful eternal rest.
