Biographical Note

NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF UGANDA PRESENTS CREDENTIALS

 

(Based on information provided by the Protocol and Liaison Service.)

The new Permanent Representative of Uganda to the United Nations, Ruhakana Rugunda, presented his credentials to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today.

At the time of his appointment, Mr. Rugunda was Minister for Internal Affairs, a position he had held since 2003.  Prior to that, he served for two years as Minister for Water, Lands and Environment.

Mr. Rugunda has held several ministerial positions throughout his extensive career in Government, including those of Minister for the Presidency from 1998 to 2001; Minister for Information (1996-1998); Minister for Foreign Affairs (1994-1996); and Minister for Works, Transport and Communications (1988-1994).  He held the health ministerial portfolio from 1986 to 1988 and, having served also as Commissioner for Animal Industry, Game and Fisheries in 1986.

Trained in medicine, Mr. Rugunda worked in the Department of Tropical Paediatrics at the University Teaching Hospital in Uppsala, Sweden, from 1984 to 1985, prior to which he spent two years as a resident in the Department of Paediatrics at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya.  From 1981 to 1982, he was a lecturer at Nairobi’s Medical Training Centre, a position he took after serving as Uganda’s Deputy Minister of Health from 1979 to 1980.

Before joining Ugandan politics, Mr. Rugunda was a resident physician in paediatrics at Washington, D.C., General Hospital from 1978 to 1979.  Based in Lusaka, Zambia, as a medical officer from 1975 to 1977, he worked first at the University Teaching Hospital and later at the United Nations Institute for Namibia.

He holds bachelor’s degrees in medicine and surgery from the University of Zambia, in addition to a master’s degree in public health from the University of California, Berkeley.  He also attended the University of Nairobi (1982-1984) and Makerere University, Kampala (1969-1973).

Born on 7 November 1947, Mr. Rugunda is married and has four children.

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For information media • not an official record