United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on September 15 announced the appointment of Natalia Gherman of the Republic of Moldova as his new Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA).
Ms. Gherman succeeds Petko Draganov of Bulgaria, who completed his assignment on 4 September 2017. The Secretary-General is grateful for his dedication and leadership of UNRCCA.
Ms. Gherman brings 25 years of experience in diplomacy having served in various high-level government positions in her native country.
Most recently from 2013 until 2016, Ms. Gherman was Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of Moldova while concurrently serving as Deputy Prime Minister and temporarily as the Acting Prime Minister in 2015. Prior to this, she was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration for four years (2009-2013) while also serving as Chief Negotiator on behalf of the Republic of Moldova for the Association Agreement with the European Union.
Earlier in her career, Ms. Gherman served as Ambassador to Austria and Permanent Representative to the United Nations Agencies in Vienna and to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and established the diplomatic presence of her country in the Nordic region, having served as first resident Moldovan Ambassador to the Kingdom of Sweden, the Kingdom of Norway and the Republic of Finland.
In February 2016, she was nominated as Moldova's candidate to succeed Ban Ki-moon as UN secretary-general.
Born in 1969, Ms. Gherman holds a Bachelors of Arts from the State University of the Republic of Moldova and Masters of Arts in War Studies from King’s College, University of London and speaks Romanian, English, Russian, French and German.
Her father, Mircea Snegur, served as the first president of Moldova following its independence from the Soviet Union from 1991 until 1997.
