SECRETARY-GENERAL OF UNCTAD PAYS TRIBUTE TO KENNETH K.S. DADZIE

Press Release
TAD/1805

SECRETARY-GENERAL OF UNCTAD PAYS TRIBUTE TO KENNETH K.S. DADZIE

GENEVA, 25 October (UNCTAD) -- The Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Rubens Ricupero, has paid tribute to Kenneth K.S. Dadzie -- a former Secretary-General of UNCTAD -- who died today in London, where he was serving as Ghana's High Commissioner.

Mr. Ricupero spoke of Mr. Dadzie's contribution to the cause of development, saying he had a development vision in the tradition of UNCTAD's first Secretary-General, Raul Prebisch. Mr. Dadzie, he said, was pragmatic and a man of consensus. "Whenever there were intractable problems to be solved in the social and economic fields, Ken Dadzie was called upon to do the job. He was known for his sharpness of mind, political judgement, tact and diplomatic acumen and for his ability to hammer out a consensus, even when agreement seemed elusive. He did so without ever compromising what he considered to be his development mission. He was the driving force behind the far-reaching institutional reforms which equipped UNCTAD to meet the challenges of a rapidly evolving world economy."

Beyond his professional, diplomatic and political skills, Mr. Ricupero added, Mr. Dadzie was a humanist, appreciated by all who knew him for his warmth, compassion, kindness and generosity of spirit; his death was a great loss to the international community.

Born on 10 September 1930, Mr. Dadzie held various posts in the diplomatic service of Ghana between 1952 and 1985, and on various occasions had been granted secondment to take up senior posts in the United Nations Secretariat. In 1975 he became his country's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva, concurrently assigned as Ambassador to Austria and Switzerland.

He was serving as High Commissioner to London, a post to which he later returned, when he was appointed to lead UNCTAD in 1986. It was a time when, according to an UNCTAD official, multilateralism was being put into question and when political commitment towards development was faltering. The Final Act of the seventh session of UNCTAD -- UNCTAD VII -- adopted by consensus in

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1987 was to a large extent thanks to the efforts of Kenneth Dadzie as Secretary-General, for bringing about a new consensus on international development cooperation, thus breaking through the barriers of the North-South divide which had brought multilateral development cooperation to a virtual standstill. He further steered the organization towards a revival, leading to a New Partnership for Development adopted at UNCTAD VIII, held in 1992 in Cartagena de Indias (Colombia).

Mr. Dadzie held high-level posts in the United Nations, both in New York and Geneva, and was closely associated with major milestones in the evolution of the United Nations. During his assignment from 1963 to 1971 to the United Nations Department of Trusteeship and Decolonization, he worked closely with the Secretary-General of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). From 1971 to 1973 he was Deputy to the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Inter-Agency Affairs and Coordination, before being transferred to the United Nations Office in Geneva as Director of External Relations.

In April 1978, he became the first Director-General for Development and International Economic Cooperation. In February 1982, he was designated Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference for the Promotion of International Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy, and next year he was elected Chairman of the United Nations Committee on the Review and Appraisal of the Implementation of the International Development Strategy for the Third United Nations Development Decade.

In November 1992, Mr. Dadzie was designated by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to assist in implementing the reform of the United Nations Secretariat in the economic and social fields.

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