Biographical Note

SECRETARY-GENERAL APPOINTS BAHAA ELKOUSSY AS DIRECTOR

 

OF UNITED NATIONS INFORMATION CENTRE IN BEIRUT

 

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is pleased to announce the appointment of Bahaa Elkoussy as Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Beirut.  He assumed his new duties on 18 May 2009.

The Beirut centre covers Kuwait, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan and also provides a range of public information and communication support and services to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA).

Mr. Elkoussy, a national of Egypt, is an experienced media professional who served on assignment as the Officer-in-Charge of the Beirut centre from October 2006 to April 2007.  He most recently held the position of a Reviser in the United Nations Department of General Assembly and Conference Management, a function he held since November 2008.  He was also a reporter with the same Department between November 2000 and April 2006, and resumed that post in April 2007, following a year on mission assignments.  For six months prior to his assignment to Beirut, Mr. Elkoussy served as Deputy Spokesman for the United Nations Mission in Sudan from April to October 2006.

Before joining the Organization, Mr. Elkoussy was a Public Relations/Corporate Communications Manager with Vodafone in Egypt.  He also has an extensive background as a journalist; as the Editor-in-Chief of Words in Pictures, an English-language magazine in Cairo; Chief Middle East Correspondent and Cairo Bureau Chief for United Press International (UPI); and reporter for the Voice of America.  He also held several press and research-related positions with the Permanent Mission of Kuwait and the Permanent Mission of Libya to the United Nations.

Mr. Elkoussy has a master’s degree in political science from Long Island University in New York.

Born in 1955, he is married and has two children.

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For information media • not an official record