UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday appointed Ghada Fathi Waly of Egypt as the new executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said his spokesman.
Waly will also serve as head of the United Nations Office at Vienna. She succeeds Yuri Fedotov of Russia in both roles.
Waly brings to the position more than 30 years of experience in the field of sustainable development, poverty reduction and social protection, women and youth empowerment, said Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman.
Waly, Egypt's minister of social solidarity since 2014, has developed the national anti-drug strategy, led a nationwide drug awareness and prevention campaign among youth and pioneered innovative programs to rehabilitate and reintegrate persons with substance use disorders into society, said the spokesman.
She was educated at Colorado State University in the United States and is fluent in Arabic, English and French.
