Biographical Note
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed Robert Watkins of Canada as his Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan, where he will also serve as United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator. Mr. Watkins replaces Bo Asplund of Sweden, who will be completing his assignment this summer. The Secretary-General is grateful to Mr. Asplund for his dedicated service for the past two years.
Mr. Watkins brings to the position broad experience in preparing and managing responses to complex humanitarian emergencies and post-conflict recovery programmes in the Middle East, the Caribbean, and Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
As United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator and the United Nations Development Programme Resident Representative in Georgia since 2006, he also served as Head of the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) Regional Office for the Middle East in Jordan, and as Head of the ECHO Regional Office for the Caribbean in the Dominican Republic. He also served as Head of Sub-Delegation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Turkey and as Head of Delegation of the IFRC in Iraq.
Earlier in his career, he worked for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement in Geneva and Ottawa and as a consultant for the Pan American Health Organization in Washington.
Mr. Watkins holds a Master of Arts in international relations from Carleton University School of International Affairs and a Bachelor of Arts in history from the University of Toronto.
Born on 27 September 1955, Mr. Watkins is married and has three children.
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