Biographical Note

New Permanent Representative of Dominican Republic presents credentials

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

Erasmo Lara-Peña, the new Permanent Representative of the Dominican Republic to the United Nations, presented his credentials today to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

As a former United Nations employee, Mr. Lara-Peña is familiar with the work of the Organization.  From 1981 through 2005, he worked in the area of human resources training and administration at the United Nations Secretariat, from which he retired in February 2005 as the Chief of the Overseas Offices Section at the Office of Human Resources Management.

Throughout his years at the United Nations, he served in Kenya, Israel, Lebanon and Jordan.  He also participated in several peacekeeping missions and was Regional Director of the United Nations Electoral Observation Mission in Nicaragua and Chief of the training mission in Angola.  For three years, he served as Deputy Chief of the United Nations Training Services.

An educator by profession, Mr. Lara-Peña started his career as a lecturer in the areas of educational psychology and counselling techniques in the Department of Education of the State University of the Dominican Republic (1974-1980).  He is also the founder of Foundation Paz y Desarollo and Director of its Dominican Center for Peace.  Since 2000, he has taken part in activities dealing with conflict resolution and peace education in his country and internationally, dealing mainly with conflict resolution training and security issues.

Mr. Lara-Peña has a Certificate in conflict resolution and mediation from Columbia University and a Master in Arts in counselling from the Catholic University of America, United States.  He also holds a Licenciatura in education from Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.  He has taken continuing education courses in the areas of education and management.

Mr. Lara-Peña is an author of numerous newspaper and magazine articles on social and educational issues and has published several books.  Since 1994, he has been involved with community work in the Dominican Republic, sponsoring a community centre, which offers medical, educational and community development programmes in rural areas of San Cristobal.

Born on 26 November 1947, Mr. Lara-Peña is married, with three children.

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For information media • not an official record