Biographical Note

NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF SAMOA PRESENTS CREDENTIALS

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

Ali’ioaiga Feturi Elisaia, the new Permanent Representative of Samoa to the United Nations, presented his credentials today to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Before his current appointment, Mr. Elisaia was Assistant Chief Executive Officer, Corporate and Support Services, in the Samoan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade since April 2001.  Before that he was co-director of the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Samoa between March 1988 and March 2001.  He served as Deputy Secretary for Foreign Affairs from December 1984 until February 1988.

The new Samoan envoy was First Secretary at his country’s High Commission in New Zealand between December 1981 and March 1984.  Between October 1979 and November 1981, Mr. Elisaia served first as Acting Division Head, and then as Division Head, in the Economic and Aid Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  He also served in the Samoan Mission to the United Nations in New York between June and October of 1979

Mr. Elisaia, who has diverse experience representing his Government in a wide range of professional activities, holds a post graduate certificate in diplomacy from Oxford University (United Kingdom) and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Administration from the University of the South Pacific, Fiji. 

Born in 1954, Mr. Elisaia is married. 

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