Chair:
Presentations:
His Excellency Collen Vixen Kelapile was elected the seventy-seventh President of the Economic and Social Council on 23 July 2021. Ambassador Vixen Kelapile is currently the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Botswana to the United Nations in New York.
His Excellency Collen Vixen Kelapile has an accumulated career of 26 years in multilateral diplomacy, both as a government representative, intergovernmental expert and is also a former United Nations (UN) Secretariat staff member.
Before his appointment in 2018 as Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN in New York, he was the Chief of Staff to the Executive-Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 2014 to 2018.
From 2013 to 2014, he served as the Deputy Director in the Department of Africa and the Middle East at the Ministry of International Affairs and Cooperation of Botswana overseeing Central, East, North and West Africa as well as the Middle East.
He was elected by the UN General Assembly as a member of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) from 2004 to 2012, where he served for three consecutive 3-year terms amounting to 9 years. During his tenure in the Committee, he served as Vice-Chair of the ACABQ for 3 years from 2008 to 2010 and subsequently as its Chair for 2 years from 2011 to 2012.
Ambassador Kelapile was posted at the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Botswana in New York from 1998 to 2003, where he rose through diplomatic ranks from Second Secretary to level of Counsellor prior to his successful election to ACABQ in 2003.
As a member of the diplomatic staff of the Mission of Botswana in New York he was the delegate to the Administrative and Budgetary (or Fifth) Committee of the UN General Assembly for 6 years from 1998 to 2003. He was also delegate to other related bodies such as the Committee for Programmes and Coordination (CPC), which is a dual subsidiary Committee reporting to both the UN General Assembly and ECOSOC.
During his tenure at the Mission of Botswana in New York Ambassador Kelapile also simultaneously served as focal point on the Legal (or Sixth) Committee of the UN General Assembly, coinciding also with the time of the elaboration of the Rome Statute on the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
He served in the Bureau of the Fifth Committee as the Vice-Chair at the 55th Session of the General Assembly in 2000/2001, and subsequently as the Vice-Chair of the CPC at its 42nd Session in 2002. He was the Coordinator of the African Group of experts in the Fifth Committee from 2001 to 2003.
In conjunction with his present position as Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN in New York, he is also concurrently Botswana’s Ambassador to Cuba and the High Commissioner to Jamaica, on a non-resident basis.
Among his other most recent engagements and roles in the UN’s intergovernmental processes in New York include serving as:
Vice-President of UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS Executive Board, 2019 Session.
Chair of 59th Session of the Committee for Programme and Coordination, 2019.
Co-Facilitator of the Alignment Process of the agendas of the UN General Assembly and ECOSOC during 74th Session of the Assembly, 2019/2020.
Chair of Special Political and Decolonization (or Fourth) Committee during 75th Session of the UN General Assembly, 2020/2021.
Vice-President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), 2021 Session.
Co-Chair of the Group of Friends on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) at the UN, 2021-2023.
Co-Chair of the Joint Steering Committee of the African Group-CARRICOM Caucus (AfCAR) Collaboration Initiative at the UN, of which he is a co-founder together with the Permanent Representative of Grenada, 2020 – Present.
Ambassador Kelapile joined the Ministry of International Affairs and Cooperation in 1995 as Desk Officer for the UN, soon after graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree (Political Science and Public Administration) from the University of Botswana in the same year.
Among other diplomatic career capacity-building and leadership development, Ambassador Kelapile also received professional diplomatic training at the Foreign Service Institute in New Delhi, India, in 1996.
Ambassador Kelapile was Born in Maitengwe, Botswana, on 10 July, 1968. He is married with one son.
Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs and director of the Economic and Political Development Concentration. He is also co-President of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue and Member of the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University. He has occupied numerous positions at the United Nations and in his native Colombia, including United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Minister of Finance, Minister of Agriculture and Director of the National Planning Office of Colombia, as well as Member of the Board of Banco de la República, Colombia’s central bank. In 2015–2016, he was also the head of Colombia’s Rural Development Commission. He has received numerous academic distinctions, including the 2012 Jaume Vicens Vives award of the Spanish Association of Economic History for the best book on Spanish or Latin American economic history, the 2008 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought and the 1988 Alejandro Ángel Escobar National Science Award of Colombia. He has published extensively on macroeconomic theory and policy, international financial issues, economic and social development, international trade and Colombian and Latin American economic history.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Mr. Liu Zhenmin of China as the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs effective 26 July 2017. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Liu was Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs of China since 2013. Among his various diplomatic assignments, he served as Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva and Other International Organizations in Switzerland (2011-2013).
Mr. Liu brings to the position more than 30 years of experience in the diplomatic service, with a strong focus on the promotion of bilateral, regional and global issues. He was deeply involved for 10 years in climate change negotiations including the conclusion of the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. He also widely participated in the international activities on the protection of our planet including Antarctica and the oceans. Over the last several years, in various capacities, he has been consistently highlighting and advocating for sustainable development issues.
Mr. Liu started his career at the Foreign Affairs Ministry in 1982. Since then, he has served the Ministry in various capacities, including as Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs (2009-2011); Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations (2006-2009); Director-General, Department of Treaty and Law (2003-2006); and Deputy Director-General, Department of Treaty and Law (1998-2003). He also served in the Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva and Other International Organizations in Switzerland (1992-1995) and in the Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations (1984-1988).
As Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Mr. Liu guides UN Secretariat support for the follow-up processes of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. He also oversees the substantive services to many intergovernmental processes, including the annual meetings of the Second and Third Committees of the General Assembly, the meetings of the Economic and Social Council, including its Development Cooperation Forum, and the work of the subsidiary bodies of ECOSOC.
In addition to intergovernmental processes, Mr. Liu oversees DESA’s policy analysis and capacity development work. He also serves as the Convenor of the Executive Committee on Economic and Social Affairs, and advises the United Nations Secretary-General on all development-related issues, including climate change, internet governance, and financing for development.
Mr. Liu holds a Master of Laws from the Law School of Peking University. He was born in August 1955 in Shanxi Province, China. Mr. Liu is married.
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