Secretary-General Appoints Derk Segaar of Netherlands Director of United Nations Information Centre in New Delhi

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Derk Segaar of the Netherlands as Director of the United Nations Information Centre in New Delhi, covering India and Bhutan.  Mr. Segaar assumes his duties on 20 January 2017.

Prior to this appointment, Mr. Segaar served since 2013 as the Chief of the United Nations Resident Coordinator’s Office and Head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan’s (UNMISS) Relief, Reintegration and Protection Section.  He was responsible for the overall managing of the UNMISS protection of civilians sites, where more than 200,000 people had sought shelter from the violence.  Mr. Segaar provided operational leadership, developed policy guidance and conducted regular press conferences on protection related issues in South Sudan.  During that period, Mr. Segaar was on separate assignments as Chief of Office for the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Ebola and as Senior Communications Adviser for the World Humanitarian Summit.

From 2011 to 2013, Mr. Segaar was the Head of Communications of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in New York, where he directly managed its global media and communications activities, including the development and implementation of its corporate advocacy and communications strategy.  From 2009 to 2011, he served as Deputy Chief of Staff to the Under-Secretary-General for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, advising on strategic, policy and operational decisions.

Mr. Segaar worked in different capacities in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs field mission in El Fasher, Sudan, from 2006 to 2009, including as Acting Head of Office.  From 2004 to 2006, he worked as a journalist for IRIN News, based in Nairobi, Kenya, where he wrote about Sudan, Somalia and Kenya.

Prior to joining the United Nations, Mr. Segaar worked as communications specialist in the private sector and for various advocacy organizations and think tanks in the Netherlands, and at New York and Columbia Universities.

Mr. Segaar holds master’s degrees in human geography from Utrecht University (Netherlands) and in international affairs from Columbia University (United States).  He was awarded a Fulbright and a Columbia University scholarship and is fluent in English, French and Dutch.  He is married and has one child.