Biographical Note

SECRETARY-GENERAL APPOINTS MARIE-EVELYNE PETRUS-BARRY AS DIRECTOR

 

OF UNITED NATIONS INFORMATION CENTRE IN PRETORIA

 

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is pleased to announce the appointment of Marie-Evelyne Petrus-Barry as Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Pretoria.  She will take up her new duties on 16 June 2009.

Ms. Petrus-Barry, a national of Guinea, has most recently held the position of Regional Representative for Central Africa and the Director for the Centre of Human Rights and Democracy for Central Africa in the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.  She has also served as Deputy Director of the Communications and Public Information Unit of the United Nations Mission in Haiti, where she organized information and civic education campaigns for voters in the framework of the elections of February 2006, programmes on human rights protection and promotion, and demobilization, disarmament and reintegration initiatives.

She has an extensive background and experience in the fields of development and human rights, including work in many African countries.  From 1997 to 2005, Ms. Petrus-Barry served as the Head of the Liaison and Organization Unit for Amnesty International in London, and as Head of its Regional Office for Africa in Kampala (Uganda), where she successfully implemented programmes on sensitization, protection and human rights education.  From 1990 to 1997, Ms. Petrus-Barry was Deputy Director for the United States Cultural and Public Information Services in Conakry, Guinea.  She also managed development projects for women and girls’ education and marginalized teenagers.

Ms. Petrus-Barry has a Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies, civilisations africaines anglophones, from the Sorbonne.

Born in 1955, she is married and has one child.

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For information media • not an official record