NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF BARBADOS PRESENTS CREDENTIALS

Biographical Note                                          

NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF BARBADOS PRESENTS CREDENTIALS

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

Christopher F. Hackett, the new Permanent Representative of Barbados, presented his credentials today to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

From November 1999 until his current appointment, Mr. Hackett was Chief of the Caribbean Division, Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Having worked in various capacities with the United Nations System since 1970, particularly in the United Nations Secretariat and UNDP, Mr. Hackett served initially as Officer-in-Charge, and thereafter, as Chief of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and Inter-Organizational Cooperation Branch of UNDP from January to November 1999.  He directed the work of that Branch in providing substantive support to intergovernmental bodies, particularly ECOSOC and the General Assembly, while promoting enhanced system-wide policy and programme coherence.

From 1995 to 1998, Mr. Hackett served as Chief of the Inter-Agency Affairs Section.  In 1993 and 1994, he was Deputy Coordinator, Secretariat of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States held in Bridgetown, Barbados in 1994.

From 1992 to 1993, Mr. Hackett was Regional Electoral Coordinator, Central Region, of the United Nations Angola Verification Mission (UNAVEM II), directing all the phases of the electoral process in the central part of that country.

From 1991 to 1992, Mr. Hackett was Chief of the joint Planning Section in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.  Prior to that, he served as the Chief Administrative Officer with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), in Jerusalem, in 1988 and 1989.

Before serving with the United Nations, Mr. Hackett worked in the Ministry of External Affairs of Barbados and was Second Secretary at the Permanent Mission of Barbados to the United Nations in New York in 1969 and 1970.

Mr. Hackett holds a PhD in public administration from New YorkUniversity, a Master of Arts in international relations from CarltonUniversity, Ottawa, Canada, a diploma in international relations from the University of the West Indies, Saint Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago (1968), and a Bachelor of Science in economics from the University of West Indies, Mona, Jamaica (1967).

He is fluent in English and French and has a working knowledge of Spanish.

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