Biographical Note

Secretary-General Appoints Kyung-wha Kang of Republic of Korea

 

Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs

 

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced today the appointment of Kyung-wha Kang ( Republic of Korea) as Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.  She will replace Catherine Bragg of Canada, to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for her commitment and dedication to humanitarian issues.

Ms. Kang has been Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights at the level of Assistant Secretary-General since January 2007.  During her tenure with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights she has been responsible for that entity’s overall management.  Ms. Kang also led the establishment of that Office’s support structure for the Universal Periodic Review and chaired the United Nations Development Group’s human rights mainstreaming mechanism.

Before joining the United Nations, Ms. Kang was Director General of International Organizations at the Republic of Korea’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade.  She served as Minister in her country’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations from September 2001 to July 2005, during which period she chaired the Commission on the Status of Women.

Before joining the Foreign Ministry in 1998, Ms. Kang assisted the Speaker of the National Assembly in the fields of women’s advancement and parliamentary diplomacy.  Earlier in her career, she worked for the Korean Broadcasting System’s news bureau and international radio bureau, and lectured in universities both in her own country and in the United States.

Ms. Kang graduated from Yonsei University with a Bachelor of Arts in political science and diplomacy.  She also has a Master of Arts in mass communication and a PhD in intercultural communication from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in the United States.

Born in 1955 in Seoul, Ms. Kang is married to Yillbyung Lee and they have two daughters and one son.

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*     This supersedes Press Release BIO/3808 of 18 September 2006.

For information media • not an official record