Ms Min-Whee Kang, a Korean national, has been appointed as the new United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) Representative in The Gambia.

Ms Kang, who arrived in the country recently, has presented her credentials to Mr. Balla Garba Jahumpa, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs earlier this week.

Ms Kang received a Bachelors of Arts from Ewha Women’s University in Seoul, Republic of Korea, with a double major in French and English Language and Literature.

She completed her studies in Paris, France, receiving a Maitrise LVE Anglais from Universite’ de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris III and a Diploma d’Etudes Approfondies (DEA) in Sciences du language from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS).

Ms Kang was previously the Executive Officer in the Office of the Executive Director at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) at its Headquarters in New York. She provided advocacy, policy and management support to the Deputy Executive Director, overseeing strategic planning, policy guidance, programme development, research, and promoting partnership for children and development among UN agencies, donors and civil society organisations.

Ms Kang joined UNICEF in January 2003 through the Young Professional Programme and started working as Assistant Programme Funding Officer in New York. Her job involved fund-raising for UNICEF-support field programmes from several key donor governments, including Italy, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland. She then moved to her current position in June 2003.

Prior to becoming a staff member of UNICEF, Ms Kang worked in East Timor, serving first with the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) as Acting Head of the Labour and Social Services Department from February to September 2000 and later, with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as Programme Officer in Sustainable Livelihood Unit from October 2000 to September 2001.

Ms Kang began her UN career in 1998 as a Junior Programme Officer (JPO), funded by the Government of the Republic of Korea  in the International Labour Organisation (ILO). She worked as Information Officer in the Gender Bureau and as Public Affairs Officer in the Bureau for External Relations and Partnerships at ILO Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. She has also worked as a conference interpreter and translator, following her training at Ecole Superieure d’Interprete et de Traducteurs (ESIT) in Paris, France.

She speaks fluent English and French, and has a working knowledge of Spanish, German and Bahasa Indonesia/Malay.