SG/A/1010
BIO/3778
PI/1725
23 June 2006

Biographical Note

Secretary-General Appoints Abdullah Saleh Mbamba of United Republic of Tanzania Director of UN Information Centre in Canberra

NEW YORK, 22 June (UN Headquarters) -- United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan is pleased to announce the appointment of Abdullah Saleh Mbamba as Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Canberra, Australia.  The Centre is relocating from Sydney and Mr. Mbamba will be the first director in its new location, having taken up his duties in the middle of June.  He is a national of the United Republic of Tanzania.

Mr. Mbamba has been serving as the Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Jakarta since October 1997.  Prior to this, from December 1988 to September 1997, he served as Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Islamabad.  Mr. Mbamba joined the Secretariat of the United Nations in New York in 1983 as an Information Officer in the Department of Public Information after a long career as a broadcast journalist for the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) in London, and with the Voice of America in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Mbamba holds a master's degree in leadership and liberal studies from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications and labour studies from the State University of New York.

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