Biographical Note

New Permanent Observer for African Union Presents Appointment Letter

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

The new Permanent Observer of the African Union to the United Nations, Téte António, presented his letter of appointment to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today.

Prior to his new appointment, Mr António was most recently the Diplomatic Adviser to the Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union.  Between December 2002 and April 2009, he served as Angola’s Deputy Permanent Representative and Minister Counsellor at the country’s United Nations Mission in New York.  In 2005, Mr. António served as adviser to the President of the fifty-ninth session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

From 1999 to 2002, Mr. António was Director, Office of the Deputy Minister of External Relations, in Luanda.  Prior to that, he was an observer for the African Union to United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), from 1997 to 1999, and served in his country’s embassy in Addis Ababa from 1993 to 1997.  He began his diplomatic career in 1990.

Mr. António received a master’s degree in international economic relations from the University of Kiev in the Ukraine in 1988.  He studied at the Faculty of Economics, University of Agostinho Neto, in Luanda (1979-1982), and has studied conflict management and prevention through the Carter Center (1996) and preventive diplomacy at Columbia University (2005).  Born in Bembe, Angola, on 22 January 1955, he is a widower and has two children.

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