Oscar Fernandez Taranco`s biography

Staff Correspondent, Dhaka, Dec 7: Oscar Fernandez-Taranco (born in 1957) was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General as Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs in the UN Department of Political Affairs on 1 July 2009.

He is responsible, inter alia, for overseeing the regional divisions of the Department of Political Affairs working on the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East and West Asia, as well as the Decolonization Unit and the Division for Palestinian Rights.

A national of Argentina, Fernandez-Taranco has studied first Economics and then Urban-Regional Economic Planning at Cornell University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology of the United States.

Fernandez-Taranco has over 25 years of experience with the United Nations and has served in a variety of functions in various locations.

Before his appointment as Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, he was Resident Coordinator in the United Republic of Tanzania. Between 1998 and 2001, he served as Resident Representative, UN Resident Coordinator and Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Haiti.

From 1994 to 1998, he was Deputy Special Representative of the Administrator of the West Bank and Gaza Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian people. For five years, he also served as Deputy Assistant Administrator and Deputy Regional Director in the Regional Bureau of Arab States in the United Nations Development Programme.

He started his career in the United Nations as a United Nations Volunteer in Benin, after a stint with Oxfam America.

Fernandez-Taranco is a member of the Interpeace Governing Council.

He is married and has two children.

Source: Wikipedia and UN Biography of Oscar Fernandez-Taranco

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