Kofi Annan
Former Secretary-General of the UN and Nobel Laureate
Kofi Annan served as United Nations Secretary General from 1997-2006. During his tenure, he made his mark as an advocate for human rights, the rule of law, and the revitalization of the United Nations. He has been a key player in the fight against HIV/AIDS and a leader of the multilateral response to the global terrorist threat.
When elected to the Secretary Generalship in 1997, Mr. Annan became the first Secretary General to come directly from the United Nations staff, and the first from a black African nation to hold the position.
In 1962, Annan took his first United Nations job with the World Health Organization in Geneva. Over his long career at the UN, Annan held a wide array of leadership posts, working in the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva and serving as the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping from 1992-1996, amongst other positions. Annan also worked on special assignments abroad, visiting global hotspots such as Yugoslavia and Iraq on behalf of the UN.
As Secretary General, Annan, worked to bolster the United Nation's relationship with businesses and civil society groups, sponsoring a Global Compact initiative to promote corporate social responsibility. He was instrumental in laying out the Millennium Development Goals, a strategy to meet the needs of the world's poorest by 2015. In 2005, Mr. Annan succeeded in persuading the United Nations to establish the Peacebuilding Commission and the Human Rights Council, new intergovernmental bodies dedicated to global peace and welfare. Annan was also a chief proponent of the creation of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. On 10 December 2001, Annan and the United Nations received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Since leaving the United Nations, Kofi Annan has continued to press for better policies to meet the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable, particularly in Africa and not only in his capacity of Chair of the APP but also as an important part of the work of the Kofi Annan Foundation.
In addition to this, he also Chairs the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), and leads the Prize Committee of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and an active member of the Elders. He is also a Board member, Patron or Honorary member of a number of organisations, including: the UN Foundation, the World Economic Forum, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Club of Madrid and the World Organisation Against Torture.
Mr. Annan currently serves as the Chancellor of the University of Ghana, a Global Fellow at Columbia University in the United States, and Li Ka Shing Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.
Kofi Annan was born in Kumasi, Ghana, on 8 April 1938. He is married to Nane and between them they have three children.