Biographical Note

NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF SIERRA LEONE PRESENTS CREDENTIALS

(Based on information received from the Protocol and Liaison Service.)

Joe Robert Pemagbi, the new Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone to the United Nations, today presented his credentials to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

From 1999 until his current appointment, Mr. Pemagbi was Chairman of the National Commission for Democracy and Human Rights in Sierra Leone, and a member of the Commission since 1994, where his duties included formulating and raising awareness about democracy, civic rights and responsibilities, and human rights.

From 1997 to 1998, he was Volunteer Project Manager for the Campaign for Good Governance in Guinea, where his duties included planning and managing civic education and human rights programmes, and office administration for Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea.

Mr. Pemagbi also served as Dean of Njala University College, University of Sierra Leone (1998-1992).  He headed the Department of Language Education there from 1986 to 1995.  Three years prior to that, he was a member of the Court of the University of Sierra Leone.  Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he held numerous positions at the University, where he had been a lecturer since 1972 and an Associate Professor since 1991 in linguistics, communications and English.

His wide-ranging experience with international organizations included

work in the Literacy and Conflict Resolution Project in the Kaliah Refugee

Camp in Guinea, administered by Education for Development (United Kingdom) and ABC-Development (Guinea-Sierra Leone) (1999-2001).  In that context, he helped train facilitators for literacy teaching, particularly integrating literacy and conflict resolution and the production and use of “real” literacy and other literacy learning materials.

In 2000, he co-evaluated the non-formal primary school programme of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the western portion of the country.  In 1998, he participated in the preparation of the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) awareness-raising programme document for post-conflict Sierra Leone.  From 1997 to 1998, he coordinated the UNDP-supported survey of “Views of the Sierra Leonean Civil Society” in Guinea on problems in Sierra Leone.  During the 1990s and 1980s, he participated in numerous such international programmes and projects.

He received his master’s degree in linguistics from the University of Leeds (1976) and his bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Sierra Leone in 1972.  He attended the Government Secondary School in Kenema from 1961 to 1966, and the Methodist Primary School in Sumbuya from 1956 to 1961.

Born on 22 November 1945 in Lower Sarma, Bo District, Sierra Leone,

Mr. Pemagbi is married with five children.

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