New UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq appointed

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today appointed Ramiro Armando de Oliveira Lopes da Silva of Portugal as the new United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq.

Mr. Lopes da Silva, who has over 15 years of UN experience, will succeed Tun Myat, who was recently appointed as the UN Security Coordinator.

The Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq is an integral part of the Office of the Iraq Programme, which oversees the UN's humanitarian oil-for-food scheme for Iraq.

The new Humanitarian Coordinator joined the UN system in 1985 and worked most recently as Director of the Transport and Logistics Division at the World Food Programme (WFP) headquarters in Rome.

During his career, Mr. Lopes da Silva has dealt with several complex humanitarian emergencies, including serving as the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Angola from 1996 to 1998 and as WFP's Special Envoy for the recent crisis in Afghanistan.