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UNITED NATIONS, Jan 3: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday announced appointment of his new chief of staff, Mark Malloch Brown, currently administrator of the United Nations Development Programme.
Mr Brown would replace Iqbal Riza, 70, who announced his retirement as chief of staff two weeks ago. Mr Brown is expected to help Mr Annan push the UN reforms process and help mend relations with Washington which were strained following allegations of corruption in the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq.
The challenges come as the body is coordinating massive relief efforts for victims of the Asian earthquake and playing a key role in organizing elections in Iraq. According to a report in the New York Times, a group of top diplomats and friends outside of the United Nations met Annan on December 5 at the apartment of a former UN ambassador, Richard Holbrooke, to discuss ways of rescuing the world body and Mr Annan's reputation after several Republican Congress leaders kept up a barrage of criticism over the oil-for-food programme.
According to the participants, they asked Mr Annan to mend relations with Washington, where some in the Bush administration thought he and the United Nations had worked against President George W. Bush's re-election, the newspaper said.
Participants also said Mr Annan needed to tackle his own bureaucracy, where staff union officials have said his office protected high officials from misconduct, the newspaper reported.
Malloch Brown, a 51-year old Briton, whose official title is administrator of the UNDP, is credited with a reform of the agency, which has programmes in 166 countries. He took office in 1999 after serving as a World Bank vice president in charge of external affairs and public relations.
AFP ADDS: Malloch Brown replaces Iqbal Riza, Annan's longtime right-hand man whose resignation was quietly announced in December. Annan refused to confirm press reports that his top political officer Kieran Prendergast was also on the way out to take over as senior envoy for the floundering Middle East peace process.
He also played down a query about bringing in more US staff sympathetic to the Republican administration of US President George W. Bush, which has sparred with Annan over oil-for-food and the Iraq war that Annan called illegal.
