Sofia Mesquita Borges of Timor-Leste Chair of Third Committee

Sofia Mesquita Borges, Permanent Representative of Timor-Leste to the United Nations, was elected Chair of the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee) on 18 June 2014.  (See Press Release GA/11525.)

Prior to her appointment in March 2010 as the young country’s third Permanent Representative, Ms. Borges was the Acting Chargé d’Affaires and served as Vice-Chair of the 2007 Caribbean Regional Seminar, held in Grenada under the auspices of the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization.

She also represented her Government in several high-level international meetings, in the Security Council and in the General Assembly, where she was the co-facilitator of a draft resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty during that body’s sixty-second session.

Before joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ms. Borges worked as an official election officer with the Australian Electoral Commission for Timor-Leste’s Popular Consultation of 30 August 1999.

Born in Dili in 1970, she earned degrees in anthropology, political science and law from the Australian National University, Canberra, and Northern University, Darwin.

Ms. Borges is married and has a daughter.

*     This supersedes Press Release BIO/4169 of 4 March 2010.