Ghada Fathi Waly to Head UN Crime Prevention and Anti-Corruption Office
Ghada Fathi Waly is the Director-General / Executive Director of the United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV) / United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) since 1 February 2020. Appointed by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, she holds the rank of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Among other responsibilities of crime prevention and dealing with illicit trafficking in and abuse of drugs, UNODC assists the UN to combat political corruption.
“Truly an honour to take my oath of office with Secretary-General António Guterres as DG UN Office Vienna & UNODC ED. I take my duty as an international civil servant to heart and am proud to contribute to the UN’s essential mission to build peace & security, human rights, and development,” Ms. Waly tweeted.
According to UNODC, Ms. Waly’s work experience includes 28 years in the field of poverty reduction and social protection. She served as Minister of Social Solidarity of Egypt from March 2014 until December 2019.
Truly an honour to take my oath of office w/ SG @antonioguterres as DG UN Office Vienna & @UNODC ED. I take my duty as an int’l civil servant to heart & am proud to contribute to the @UN’s essential mission to build peace & security, human rights, development #UN75 pic.twitter.com/9bdDF9zWKW
— GhadaFathiWaly (@GhadaFathiWaly) February 20, 2020
She also served as the Coordinator of the Inter-Ministerial Committee for Social Justice and chaired the Executive Council of Arab Ministers of Social Affairs in the League of Arab States from 2014 to 2019.
She was the Chairperson of Nasser Social Bank, a pro-poor developmental financial institution. She chaired the boards of the National Center for Social and Criminology Research, the National Fund for Drug and Addiction Control, and the National Authority of Social Insurance, which serves 25 million Egyptians.
Prior to that, she held leadership positions as Managing Director of Social Fund for Development (SFD), a multi million-dollar SME Fund, and as Assistant Resident Representative for poverty reduction at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), where she was responsible for coordinating the Millennium Development Goals reports and launched the National Strategy for Micro Finance. She was also Program Director of CARE International in Egypt, working in the field of poverty alleviation.
Ghada Waly holds an MA and a BA from Colorado State University (US) in Humanities; she also holds a diploma in international development and a diploma in Project Management and is certified in Micro Finance from University of Colorado Boulder. She is fluent in Arabic, English, and French and has a working knowledge of Spanish.
