Biographical Note

Ibrahim A. Gambari, a scholar-diplomat, is currently Under-Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary-General on the International Compact with Iraq and Other Political Issues.  On 22 May 2007, the Secretary-General also entrusted him with the Good Offices mandate on Myanmar.

Mr. Gambari was Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, from 2005 to 2007; and UN Special Adviser of Africa (1999-2005), and Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Mission to Angola (2002-2003).

Before joining the UN he served his country as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations (1990-1999).  He was also Minister for Foreign Affairs of Nigeria (1984-85), and before that he was the Director General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs.

He graduated with a B.Sc (Economics) degree from the London School of Economics (1968) and received his M.A. (1970) and his Ph.D. (1974) in Political Science/International Relations from Columbia University in New York.  He has variously lectured and held teaching position at City University of New York, State University of New York in Albany, Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Georgetown University and Howard University in Washington, D.C. He served as a Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., and a Resident Scholar with the Rockefeller Foundation Center in Italy. He is the author of several books and scholarly articles.

He has received Doctor of Humane Letters degree (honoris causa) from the University of Bridgeport, Connecticut (2002), and Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey (2006).  Johns Hopkins University elected him to membership of the University’s prestigious Society of Scholars in 2002. Professor Gambari was awarded the high national honour, Commander of the Federal Republic Nigeria (CFR), in 2002.