United Nations Development Programme
Helen Clark became the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme on 17 April 2009, and is the first woman to lead the organization. She is also the Chair of the United Nations Development Group, a committee consisting of the heads of all UN funds, programmes and departments working on development issues. The current government of New Zealand strongly supported her nomination, along with Australia, the Pacific Island nations and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown. She also received the support of the five countries on the UNDP board (Iran, Haiti, Serbia, The Netherlands and Tanzania) and was unanimously confirmed by the General Assembly on 31 March. She was officially sworn in by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 27 April 2009.
In this position, Forbes deemed her the 61st most powerful woman in the world.
In an interview with New Zealand news agency 3 News on 5 March 2012, she confirmed she would be seeking another four year term as Administrator of the UNDP.
Read more about this topic: Helen Clark
Famous quotes containing the words united, nations, development and/or programme:
“We begin with friendships, and all our youth is a reconnoitering and recruiting of the holy fraternity they shall combine for the salvation of men. But so the remoter stars seem a nebula of united light, yet there is no group which a telescope will not resolve; and the dearest friends are separated by impassable gulfs.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Vivenza might be likened to St. John, feeding on locusts and wild honey, and with prophetic voice, crying to the nations from the wilderness.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“As long as fathers rule but do not nurture, as long as mothers nurture but do not rule, the conditions favoring the development of father-daughter incest will prevail.”
—Judith Lewis Herman (b. 1942)
“In the case of all other sciences, arts, skills, and crafts, everyone is convinced that a complex and laborious programme of learning and practice is necessary for competence. Yet when it comes to philosophy, there seems to be a currently prevailing prejudice to the effect that, although not everyone who has eyes and fingers, and is given leather and last, is at once in a position to make shoes, everyone nevertheless immediately understands how to philosophize.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)