UN chief appoints BRAC Founder and Chairperson to panel of advisors

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today appointed a Group of Eminent Persons to advise on the support needed to help the world’s poorest nations achieve their development targets.

BRAC’s Founder and Chairperson, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, was among the ten people selected to join the Group.

“The members have been selected in view of their high international stature, expertise and strong commitment to global development,” said the spokesperson for the UN Secretary General. “They will be making efforts to raise public awareness and build strong political commitment in support of the LDCs in key areas, including trade, investments, technology transfer, official development assistance, building productive capacities, adaptation to the effects of climate change, and a stimulus package to manage the impacts of the global financial crisis.”

Others in the Group include, Alpha Oumar Konaré, former president of the Republic of Mali; Jacques Delors, former president of the European Commission; Nancy Birdsall, the founding president of the Center for Global Development; Kemal Dervi vice president and director of Global Economy and Development at Brookings Institution; James Wolfensohn, chairman and CEO of Wolfensohn & Company and former President of the World Bank; Hiromasa Yonekura, chairman of Sumitomo Chemical Company Ltd.; Louis Michel, member of European Parliament and formerly the European commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid; Louis A. Kasekende, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Uganda and formerly executive director at the World Bank; and Sir Richard Jolly, Honorary Professor of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex.