Singapore

Permanent Representative of Singapore to the United Nations Office in Geneva and the United Nations Office in Vienna, resident in Geneva

Ambassador Umej Bhatia is Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva and the United Nations Office in Vienna, resident in Geneva.  Ambassador Bhatia is concurrently Resident Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency and Permanent Representative to the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty Organization.

Ambassador Bhatia graduated with Double First-Class Honours from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom in 1995 under a Singapore Broadcasting Corporation scholarship. He obtained a Master of Arts from Harvard University, United States of America in 2005 under a Ministry of Foreign Affairs scholarship. In 1995, Ambassador Bhatia worked for the then Television Corporation of Singapore where he produced and presented the current affairs programme “Talking Point“. Ambassador Bhatia joined the Foreign Service in 1996 and has served in various capacities on issues covering Southeast Asia, Middle East and the United Nations in the Ministry’s headquarters.

African Union

H.E. Ambassador Amr Abdellatif Aboualatta is the Permanent Observer of the African Union to the United Nations Office in Geneva since February 2022.

Prior to this appointment, Mr. Aboualatta, an Egyptian diplomat, served as Permanent Representative of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the United Nations in New York from September 2014 to February 2018, during which time, in 2016 and 2017, he chaired, among other things, the Security Council Committees established pursuant to resolutions 1373 and 1533 on counterterrorism and the Democratic Republic of Congo, respectively. From July 2002 to June 2006, he was his country's Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York.

Mr. Aboualatta also served as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Head of the Diplomatic Personnel Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cairo from September 2013 to the end of August 2014, after having served as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Permanent Representative of Egypt to the League of Arab States from September 2012 to the end of August 2013.

Mr. Aboualatta also served as Egypt's Ambassador to Jordan from September 2008 to the end of August 2012, after having been Deputy Assistant to the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs for International Political Affairs and the United Nations from September 2007 to September 2008.

Having joined the diplomatic career at the end of 1981, Mr. Aboualatta has served in Paris as Second Secretary of the Egyptian Embassy (1987-1991) and in Washington as Counselor at the Egyptian Embassy (1994-1999). He also served as First Secretary to the Cabinet of the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1991 to 1994 and later, from 1999 to 2002, as Counselor and Head of the Department of US and Canadian Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cairo.

Mr. Aboualatta holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Cairo University and a Master's degree from the former International Institute of Public Administration in Paris.

Born on November 10, 1957 in Giza, Mr. Aboualatta is married and has one daughter.

Afghanistan

Prior to his appointment as Ambassador and PR to Geneva, Dr. Andisha was the Afghanistan’s Deputy Foreign Minister (2015-2019) and Ambassador of Afghanistan to Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji. (2011-2015).

Between 2009-2011, he served as the Director General of the Fifth Political Division (US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) and from 2006 to 2007 as the Director of Multilateral Economic Relations and International Financial Institutions.

Amb. Andisha has also worked at the Energy Charter Secretariat in Brussels as a consultant in 2006 and in 2008 he served at the Permanent Mission of Afghanistan at the U.N. Headquarters in New York City. Before joining the Foreign Service, he worked with the International Committee of Red Cross as a field officer in norther Afghanistan (1998-2001) Dr. Andisha taught at Institute of Diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at the Al Beruni University in Kapisa province -Afghanistan. He holds a master’s degree from Texas A&M University and a PhD from the Asia Pacific College of Diplomacy at the Australian National University.

He is fluent in Farsi/Dari, Pashto and English and posse’s basic fluency in Arabic and French. He is married and have three children.

Canada

Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations

Ambassador Norton began her career in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) and then worked for many years at the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in a range of positions in the Africa, Asia and Multilateral branches, including serving in Bangladesh and at the Permanent Mission of Canada in Geneva. At Headquarters, she served as director of the International Humanitarian Assistance and Food Aid unit at CIDA from 2006 to 2008 and as director of the Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Response Group at DFAIT from 2008 to 2009. She served as director general of the International Humanitarian Assistance Bureau from 2009 to 2015 and as director general of the Southern and Eastern Africa Bureau from 2015 to 2016. She has served as assistant deputy minister of Sub-Saharan Africa Branch from 2016 to 2019.

Denmark

Mr. Petersen has from September 2020 to October 2023 served as Assistant Secretary General, Deputy Executive Director (Management) in UNFPA. He came to UNFPA from a position as Director for the Department of Migration, Conflict and Stabilization of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Petersen has over 30 years of experience within the spheres of bilateral and multilateral affairs and development. He served as the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Denmark to the United Nations in New York from 2013-2019, during which period he held several important duties. Most notably, Mr. Petersen has served on the Executive Boards of the United Nations Development Programmes, including as President of the Executive Board of UN Women in 2015 and as President of the Joint UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS Executive Board in 2017. Mr. Petersen was in 2019 Denmark’s Special Envoy for ICPD25 and the Nairobi Summit as well as Special Envoy for Conflict and Fragility.

Mr. Petersen started his long-serving career with the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1985. Throughout his service, he notably held the positions of State Secretary (Middle East, Africa, Asia, Latin America and the United Nations) from 2007-2009 and State Secretary for Development Policy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2009-2013. Mr. Petersen served as Under Secretary for Bilateral Cooperation from 2004-2007, and before that as Director, Department for Development Policy from 2001-2004. During this time, Mr. Petersen led the development of new strategies for Danish development cooperation, strengthened results-based management and successfully implemented development campaigns and initiatives to support economic growth in Africa, as well as promotion of human rights, in particular women's rights and empowerment.

Mr. Petersen holds a Master’s Degree in Political Science from the University of Aarhus. He is Commander of the Order of the Dannebrog.

Mr. Petersen is married and has two sons.

Finland