NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF JAMAICA PRESENTS CREDENTIALS TO DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF UNOG

Gail Marie Mathurin, the new Permanent Representative of Jamaica to the United Nations Office at Geneva, today presented her credentials to Sergei Ordzhonikidze, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva.

Prior to her appointment to Geneva, Ms. Mathurin had been serving simultaneously as High Commissioner of Jamaica to the United Kingdom, and as Ambassador to Denmark, Finland Norway and Spain since April 2005. From 2002 to 2005, she was the Under-Secretary of the Foreign Trade Division and Ambassador for External Negotiations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade. In 1998, she was appointed Senior Director in the Foreign Trade Department of the Foreign Ministry, and served in that capacity till 2002.

From 1995 to 1998, Ms. Mathurin was posted to Washington, D.C., as Minister and Deputy Permanent Representative to the Permanent Mission of Jamaica to the Organization of American States. She began her diplomatic career in 1977 as an information attaché at the Jamaican High Commission in London and thereafter served in numerous posts in Europe and the Americas, including as a Counsellor at the Permanent Mission of Jamaica to the United Nations in New York from 1987 to 1989.

Ms. Mathurin holds a B.A. in sociology and history (1972) and a diploma in mass communications (1975) from the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. She has also completed numerous courses in international trade topics, including, most recently, a trade and policy course at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. (1998).

Ms. Mathurin was born on 20 January 1950.