United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has notified the Security Council of his intention to appoint the principal deputy chief of the UN peacekeeping mission in Côte d'Ivoire as the new chief of the UN mission in Liberia, a UN spokeswoman said today.
Alan Doss, a citizen of the United Kingdom, would replace retired US Air Force Major-General Jacques Paul Klein as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) and head of the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). Mr. Klein's contract expired in April.
Mr. Doss has had a long and distinguished career with the United Nations, having served as Principal Deputy SRSG in Côte d'Ivoire since June of last year. Before that, he was Deputy SRSG in Sierra Leone, while concurrently holding the positions there of UN Resident Coordinator, UN Humanitarian Coordinator and UN Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative.
His previous assignments in the UN included posts at headquarters in New York, at the UN complex in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as in Thailand, China, Kenya, Niger, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Benin.