FORMER UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL, KOFI ANNAN IS DEAD

His tenure as United Nations (UN) Secretary-General coincided with the Iraq War and the HIV/Aids pandemic. After serving for 10 years at UN, Annan served as the United Nations (UN) Special Envoy for Syria, leading efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.

He described his greatest achievement as the Millennium Development Goals which – for the first time – set global targets on issues such as poverty and child mortality.

Penpushing reports that, Annan was born in Kumasi Ghana on 8 April 1938. After studying at Kwame Nkrumah University, he went on to study economics at Macalester College, International Relations from the Graduate Institute Geneva and Management at MIT.

He joined the United Nations(UN) in 1962, working for the World Health Organisation’s Geneva office,and went on to work in several capacities at the United Nations(UN) Headquarters including serving as the Under-Secretary-General for peacekeeping between March 1992 and December 1996.

Penpushing further reports that, the deceased was the first United Nations(UN) Secretary General to be appointed from within the organisation’s bureaucracy. His first marriage was to Titi Alakija, from 1965 to 1983. After the marriage collapsed, he married Nane Maria Lagergren in 1984. He is survived by his wife, Nane and three children, Kojo, Ama and Nina.