YVONNE GITTENS-JOSEPH OF TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO ELECTED CHAIRPERSON OF THIRD COMMITTEE
Press Release
BIO/3316
GA/SHC/3571
YVONNE GITTENS-JOSEPH OF TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO ELECTED CHAIRPERSON OF THIRD COMMITTEE
20000905 Biographical NoteYvonne Gittens-Joseph, who was elected Chairperson of the Third Committee (Social, Cultural and Humanitarian) for the General Assembly's fifty-fifth session this afternoon, has been the Deputy Permanent Representative of Trinidad and Tobago to the United Nations since February 1995.
Prior to her appointment to the Trinidad and Tobago Permanent Mission to the United Nations, Mrs. Gittens-Joseph was Director of the Political Affairs Division of her country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She had previously served in a number of that Ministry's divisions, including its Division of International Economic Relations and International Trade.
From September 1981 to March 1983, she served as Deputy High Commissioner to India, and from August 1977 to August 1981 she was First Secretary at Trinidad and Tobago's Mission to the United Nations in Geneva.
Mrs. Gittens-Joseph has represented her country at a number of international conferences, including the 1978 and 1980 General Conferences of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Assemblies from 1979 to 1981, the Food and Agricultural Organizations General Conference in 1979, the Seventh Summit Meeting of Non-Aligned Countries and the Second Ministerial Meeting of the Caribbean Community/Central America.
She also participated in the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 1993, the 1994 Meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995. In April 1994 she was part of the United Nations Observer Mission in South Africa (UNOMSA). Before joining the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she worked in her country's Ministry of Planning and Development.
Mrs. Gittens-Joseph holds a Bachelor of Science Honors degree in Social Sciences and a post-graduate diploma in International Relations from the University of the West Indies in Trinidad.
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