Biographical Note

Secretary-General Appoints Desmond Parker of Trinidad and Tobago Chief of Protocol

The Secretary-General today announced the appointment of Desmond Parker of Trinidad and Tobago as Chief of Protocol, effective from 1 April 2010.  He was appointed Deputy Chief of Protocol in 2007.

Previously involved in peacekeeping operations, Mr. Parker was Acting Chief Administrative Officer for the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) from 2002-2006.  Prior to that posting, he served as Special Assistant and Senior Administrative Management Officer in the Logistics Support Division, Office of the Assistant Secretary-General for Mission Support, Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and in the Office of the Director, Administrative Support Division, Department of Field Support.

In June 1996, Mr. Parker became a Human Rights Officer in the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and the United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office in Liberia (UNOL) until 2002, after transferring in 1994 to the world body from the Joint United Nations/Organization of American States Mission in Haiti, where he served in a similar capacity.

Between 1992 and 1994, Mr. Parker was posted at the Embassy of Trinidad and Tobago in Washington, D.C., as First Secretary and Alternate Representative for Trinidad and Tobago to the Organization of American States.  He served until 1992 in the Political Affairs and Protocol Departments of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and as Protocol Officer in the Office of the Prime Minister, having first joined the Foreign Service in 1985.

Mr. Parker graduated from the University of Toronto in 1975 with a Bachelor of Arts in modern languages (French and Spanish), later pursuing a master’s degree in Francophone literature and a post-graduate diploma in education while lecturing in French language and literature at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria, from 1979 to 1985.  In 1988, he pursued post-graduate studies in international relations at the University of the West Indies, Saint Augustine, Trinidad.

Born on 17 February 1950, Mr. Parker is married and has four children.

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