Rabab Fatima elected Vice President of UN bodies’ Executive Board

GBNEWS24 DESK//

Bangladesh’s Permanent Representative (PR) to the United Nations Ambassador Rabab Fatima has been elected as Vice President of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) Executive Board.

This will enable Bangladesh to work closely with the other board members and the leaderships of these three vital UN organs and provide them strategic guidance to their work, said the Bangladesh Mission on Tuesday.

This election comes as a demonstration of the trust and confidence that Bangladesh enjoys due to her strong legacy of working together with the UN entities and their Executive Boards for implementation of the global development agenda under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, it said.

Ambassador Fatima is also serving this year as the President of the UNICEF Executive Board.

The Ambassador of Bulgaria was elected as the President of the Board at the elections held in New York on Monday.

The other Vice-Presidents are Ambassadors of the Netherlands and The Gambia.

The UNDP, UNFPA and UNOPS have specific mandates to advance the UN’s development agenda at the field level.

UNDP is the largest UN agency with primary focus on poverty alleviation and sustainable development.

The UNFPA covers population and family planning issues, while UNOPS works in cross-cutting areas across peace, development and humanitarian matters.

In her address at the first meeting of the newly elected Executive Board, Ambassador Fatima thanked the Board members for their support and confidence in Bangladesh’s ability to contribute to the work of these important UN agencies.

She assured them of her delegation’s full support to their work, especially now in their efforts to build back better from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rabab Fatima is a career foreign service officer belonging to the 1986 batch of Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) Foreign Affairs cadre, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She has been serving in her current post since 2019.

In her diplomatic career, Fatima worked in various capacities in Bangladesh missions in New York, Tokyo, Geneva, Kolkata and Beijing.

At the headquarters, she served in various capacities primarily in the United Nations Wing.

Fatima also served in lien at two international organizations — the Commonwealth Secretariat in London as the head of Human Rights (2006-2007), the International Organization for Migration as the regional representative for South Asia in Dhaka (2007-2011), and as the regional coordinator and adviser for South and South West Asia and regional adviser for Climate Change and Migration in IOM’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok (2012-2015).

She obtained her masters in International Relations and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the US, reports UNB.