Secretariat

Dr. Jehangir Khan, Secretary General of UNCPGA

Dr. Jehangir Khan has served in different capacities at the United Nations for over 30 years, both as a UN delegate and as a high-level UN Secretariat official.

Dr. Jehangir Khan was appointed Secretary General of the Council of Presidents of the United Nations General Assembly (UNCPGA) on 1 June 2023. He previously served as Director of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) in the United Nations Secretariat. He also served concurrently as Director of the United Nations Counter Terrorism Center (UNCCT) within the UNOCT. Previously he served as Director of the United Nations Counter Terrorism Implementation Task Force Office within the UN Department of Political Affairs from 2013 to 2017.

Dr. Khan served as Director of the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) Middle East and West Asia Division in the United Nations Secretariat and, before that, as Director of the Asia and Pacific Division in the Department of Political Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat. Prior to that, Dr. Khan served as Chairman of the UN-Iraq Operations Group. Previous to this, he served as Deputy Head of Policy Planning in the Department of Political Affairs in the UN Secretariat.

Before joining the UN Secretariat in 1992, Dr. Khan served as Chef de Cabinet to the President of the UN General Assembly. Prior to this, he served as a UN delegate to the Political, Financial and Legal Committees of the UN General Assembly from 1983 to 1992, and to numerous International Conferences.

Dr. Khan is a national of Pakistan. He is a graduate of London University and holds a Doctorate in International Law from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy/Harvard Law School.

Dr. Tapio Kanninen, Special Advisor of UNCPGA

Tapio Kanninen is Senior Adviser of UNCPGA. He is also Director of the Major Wars Project at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center where he earned his PhD in Political Science in 1990 He was Chief of Policy Planning at the UN Department of Political Affairs (1998-2005) and Head of the Secretariat of Kofi Annan’s five Summits with Regional Organizations. He has worked on several UN reforms: as Secretary and Research Focal Point of the High-level Drafting Group of Boutros-Boutros Ghali’s An Agenda for Peace and Convener of the Interdepartmental Task Force to Implement its Recommendations; Secretary of General Assembly Working Groups on An Agenda for Peace; of Strengthening of the UN System; and of the Security Council reform. He has also earlier worked on global sustainability and is a co-founder of Climate Leadership Coalition, Europe’s largest non-profit business network on climate change. He is a member of Club of Rome, and the history of the Club is described in his book “Crisis of Global Sustainability” (Routledge, 2013). His earlier book “Leadership and Reform” (Kluwer 1995) describes the inside story of Javier Perez de Cuellar’s leadership in the UN’s major reform process of the late 1980s.

Samuel Djaryang, Special Advisor of UNCPGA

Samuel Djaryang, a Cameroonian national, is a Special Advisor in the Council of Presidents of the United Nations General Assembly (UNCPGA) since June 2023.
He concurrently serves as Senior Advisor at the Permanent Mission of Namibia to the United Nations in New York. In this capacity, he represents Namibia in intergovernmental and multi-stakeholder meetings and processes to advance the country's priorities in the United Nations.
Previously, he was a Counter-Terrorism Programme Management Consultant in the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) in New York where he managed global counter-terrorism projects implemented in Cameroon, Iraq, Jordan, Mali, Nigeria, and Tunisia, and before that he also worked in the former Department of Field Support (DFS) of the United Nations Secretariat in the Field Budget and Finance Division.
He completed his BA in Bilingual Studies (English and French) at the University of Yaounde I, Cameroon (2009). He holds a Master of Science degree in Financial Management from Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, India (2012) and a Master in International Business from Hult International Business School, Boston, USA.

Claudia Abate, Special Advisor of UNCPGA

Claudia Abate is a Special Advisor to the Council of Presidents to the United Nations General Assembly (UNCPGA)  since June 2023. She is also the Founder of the Foundation for Post Conflict Development (FPCD), a US not for profit organization in associated status with the UN Department of Global Communications.  Claudia was an international civil servant of the United Nations from 1993-2006. She served during some of history’s world summits in the UN Security Council, UN General Assembly and participated in UN Electoral Observation and Peacekeeping Missions in Fiji and Timor-Leste. These experiences drove Claudia to create the FPCD in 2005, founded to fulfill the SDGs in post conflict situations. With a career spanning 30 years, Claudia is a respected and trusted advisor to Government Officials, civil society organizations, philanthropists, members of Royal families, and international organizations. Concurrent to her Foundation work, at present Claudia advises the International Olympic Committee and other prominent international organizations.