UNITED NATIONS - The UN General Assembly on Thursday confirmed former Turkish finance minister Kemal Dervis as the new head of the influential UN Development Programme (UNDP).
The 56-year-old, a former World Bank official, replaces Mark Malloch Brown, the Briton who was named earlier this year as the new chief of staff to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who nominated Dervis last week.
Dervis, credited with helping steer Turkey through its worst economic crisis of modern times in 2001, is the first-ever UNDP chief to come from a nation that gets development aid rather than one that receives it.
He is expected to take up the position on August 15.
"I am thrilled that the secretary general and the General Assembly have placed their confidence in me as the new UNDP Administrator," Dervis said in a press release.
"I relish the opportunity to work for an organisation which has always stood at the frontlines of the battle against poverty and has been a leader in fighting for the right of all people to live with freedom and dignity," he said.
UNDP is the largest agency of the United Nations, and its chief is one of the most powerful officials in the UN system.
05/05/2005 17:04 GMT