UN Personal Ambassador Chowdhury
Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States.
UN Personal Ambassador Chowdhury
I was sitting in his office – the man with the longest job title I had even known, and is still the longest job title I’ve encountered since: Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States. This was the man in the United Nations that was sponsoring our certification in “Reconciliation Leadership”.
After reading the book “Building a Global Civic Culture: Education for an Interdependent World”, I decided to identify as a Global Citizen rather than a citizen of any tribe or nation. I was in the process of defining “What does it mean to be a Global Citizen?” One of my (many) directions was to become knowledgeable in the workings of the United Nations. But I wasn’t sure how to become knowledgeable to say nothing about being involved in the UN.
I found out about a program leading to certification in “Reconciliation Leadership” that included was directed by Virginia Swain through Anwarul Chowdhury, the “Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing Countries.
While we here in the United States will use the term “Third-World Countries”, the UN prefers to use the designation of “Least Developed Countries” to avoid the implication of “Third-Rate Countries”. They designate countries as “Least Developed Countries”, “Developing Countries” and “Developed Countries”. Developed Countries have high per capita income, technologically advanced economies, and strong infrastructure and human development indicators. Examples are Japan, the United States, Germany, and Russia. Developing Countries are neither Least Developed nor Developed and include countries like Brazil, and many of the countries that broke away from the USSR such as Romania and Bulgaria. Elise Bolding, the author of the book I mentioned earlier, used to call them “Two-Thirds World Countries” rather than “Least Developed Countries” to give a perspective of the size of this group of countries.
Many countries are too small to afford hiring an ambassador to live in New York City to attend the meetings and do official business in the UN building. The US used to rent a place at $58,000 a month until it bought a condo for $15,850,000. (However Ireland and Estonia paid $300,000 a month and $360,000 a month respectively for their ambassador’s residence.)
Many of these smaller countries, unable to afford these prices, include landlocked developing countries (LLDCs), Least Developed Countries (LDCs), and Small Island Developing States (SIDS). Lest these small, poorer countries wind up without representation in the works of the UN, there is one person (and his entourage) who acts as their ambassador to the UN.
Chowdhury was explaining to our class his role and responsibilities in his position. It was he, through his Culture of Peace involvements, who was responsible for this program in Reconciliation Leadership. He was also celebrated for his role in the adoption and advancement of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 - the first resolution to link women’s rights and participation to the maintenance of international peace and security. After his tenure at the UN of five years, he became one of the world’s most advocates of the Culture of Peace which promotes non-violence, intercultural understanding, and peace education as well as encourages a shift from a culture of war and domination to one of dialogue and respect.
I was able to appreciate not only what Chowdhury was doing, but the way that the UN works in seeing that all peoples are represented in their workings.
