Biographical Note                                           BIO/3448*

                                                            GA/DIS/3221

                                                            11 September 2002

MATIA MULUMBA SEMAKULA KIWANUKA:  CHAIRMAN OF FIRST COMMITTEE

      The Permanent Representative of Uganda, Mutia Mulumba Semakula Kiwanuka, was elected Chairman of the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) on 17 July this year.

Prior to his appointment as Permanent Representative in July 1996,

Mr. Semakula Kiwanuka was Executive Director of the Management Training and Advisory Centre in Kampala.  From 1991 to 1994, he served as First Dean at the School of Postgraduate Studies and Research, Makerere University, Uganda.

Since then, he has led many of his country’s delegations to United Nations sessions and other international meetings, among them, as President of the United Nations Pledging Conference for Development Activities (2001), Chairman of the Africa Group of Ambassadors (2001), Chairman of the Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee) in 2000.  He was Vice-President of the fifty-third session of the United Nations General Assembly (1998), Vice-President of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (2000-2002), Chairman of the Working Group of the Disarmament Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons (1968), and Chairman of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (1999).

He was associated with various United Nations programmes in Africa between 1985 and 1990, including as Director of Planning and Counterpart Technical Adviser to the capacity and institutional strengthening project in Uganda of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and as consultant for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).  He was Senior Presidential Adviser on Reconstruction and Rehabilitation (1979-1980) and coordinated the activities of international agencies to mobilize food aid for Karamoja, northern Uganda, during the 1979-1980 famine.

Mr. Semakula Kiwanuka served as Director of Studies at the University of Calabar, Nigeria (1981-1985).  Other academic appointments -– from August 1977 to April 1988 -– include visiting scholar, University of Cambridge; visiting fellow, St. Edmunds College, Cambridge; and senior visitor, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge.  He was Dean of the Faculty of Arts, and Professor and Head of the History Department at Makerere University (1973-1976).  Under the sponsorship of the United States Department of State, he served as

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*     This supersedes Press Release BIO/3319-GA/SPD/180 of 5 September 2000.

- 2 - Press Release

Visiting Associate Professor in African History at Northwestern and Duke Universities (1968-1970).  Prior to that, he was a senior lecturer (1968-1972) and special lecturer (1964-1968) at Makerere University.

He has written five books and is the author of more than 40 articles and reviews on history, science, technology, economic development, management training, agricultural economics and extension, rural development, AIDS, the environment, the first-ever Encyclopedia Britannica entry on Uganda (1972), human rights, central banking and many others.  He has been a member of more than

50 organizations, holding office in many, and the recipient of several honours and awards.

Mr. Semakula Kiwanuka received a doctorate in history from London University in 1965, a post-graduate diploma in development economics from Oxford University (Balliol College) in 1979, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from London University in special relationship with Makerere University.

Born in Kampala on 16 September 1939, Mr. Semakula Kiwanuka is married and has seven grown-up children.

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