Biographical Note

Noel Nelson Messone of Gabon Chair of Fourth Committee

 

Noel Nelson Messone, Permanent Representative of Gabon to the United Nations, was elected Chair of the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) on 4 September.  (See Press Release GA/SPD/500)

Mr. Messone has served as Permanent Representative since February 2011.  In 2010, he served as Gabonese Ambassador to the Benelux States and the European Union, while concurrently serving as Senator of Gabon.

Between 2007 and 2009, Mr. Messone was Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Gabon, and prior to that, from 2003 to 2007, he was Senior Political Adviser to the Secretary-General of the Organization Internationale de la Francophonie, in Paris, France.  He was West Africa Regional Director for Agence Intergouvernementale de la Francophonie, in Lon, Togo, between 1999 and 2003, before which he served as Associate Director of US Peace Corps, Gabon, in Libreville, from 1995 until 1999.  For one year prior, from 1994 to 1995, he was training director of US Peace Corps.

Also that year, Mr. Messone was an Assistant Professor at the Institut de l’Economie et des Finances, Gabon.  In 1993 he was an Instructor and Research Fellow at the University of Kentucky, in Lexington, Kentucky, United States.  From 1985 to 1987, the new envoy was Training Coordinator of US Peace Corps in Gabon.

A former Fulbright scholar, Mr. Messone holds a doctorate degree in political economy from the University of Kentucky (1994); a master’s degree from the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, Lexington, Kentucky (1991); and a university diploma from the Université de Paris Sorbonne-Nouvelle, Paris, France (1988).  He specialized in American studies at the University Omar Bongo Odimba in Libreville, Gabon, in 1987.

Born on 22 December 1960 in Ovan, north-east Gabon, Mr. Messone is married with three children.

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*     This supersedes Press Release BIO/4270 of 23 February 2011.

For information media • not an official record