For Immediate Release
From: Dennis Brown, [email protected]
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi A. Annan, will be the principal speaker at the University of Notre Dame's 155th Commencement May 21 (Sunday). The ceremony will begin at 2 p.m. in the Joyce Center arena on campus.
"In his three years at the helm of the United Nations, Kofi Annan has demonstrated steadfast leadership and uncommon courage in the face of numerous international crises," said Notre Dame's president, Rev. Edward A. Malloy, C.S.C. "We are pleased that he will honor us with his presence as we award him with an honorary degree."
The seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, Annan is the first to be elected from the ranks of the UN staff. He succeeded Boutrous Boutrous-Ghali and began a five-year term Jan. 1, 1997.
Annan's four priorities as Secretary-General have been to revitalize the United Nations through a comprehensive program of reform; to strengthen its traditional work for peace and development; to encourage and advocate human rights, the rule of law and the universal values of equality, tolerance and human dignity found in the UN Charter; and to restore public confidence in the organization by, in his words, "bringing the United Nations closer to the people."
Among the international conflicts in which Annan has played a leading role is the ongoing effort to gain Iraq's compliance with the UN Security Council's resolutions. He also has assisted in promoting the transition to civilian rule in Nigeria and in resolving the stalemate between Libya and the Security Council over the 1998 Lockerbie bombing.
From November 1995 to March 1996, after the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Annan served as a special representative of the secretary-general to the former Yugoslavia, overseeing the transition in Bosnia and Herzegovina from the United Nations Protection Force to the multinational Implementation Force led by NATO. He played a primary role in the unprecedented growth in size and scope of UN peacekeeping operations from 1993-96, with total deployment reaching a high in 1995 of almost 70,000 military and civilian personnel from 77 countries.
In 1990, after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, Annan was given a special assignment by the secretary-general to facilitate the repatriation of more than 900 international staff and the release of Western hostages in Iraq. He subsequently led the first United Nations team negotiating with Iraq on the sale of oil to fund purchases of humanitarian aid.
Born April 8, 1938, in Kumasi, Ghana, Annan studied at the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi and completed his undergraduate work in economics at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., in 1961. He undertook graduate studies in economics at the Institut Universitaire des Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva from 1961-62, and, as a Sloan Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1971-1972, he earned a master's degree in management.
Annan joined the United Nations system in 1962 as an administrative and budget officer with the World Health Organization in Geneva.
Annan is fluent in English, French and several African languages. He is married to Nane Annan, a lawyer and artist, and they have three children.
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