The UN Resident Coordinator Office
As the designated representative of the UN Secretary-General in the Kingdom of Bahrain, the UN Resident Coordinator guides the UN’s engagement in development activities in the country.
The UN Resident Coordinator’s responsibilities include ensuring the coordination of the UN’s development activities, creating a platform of coordinated delivery, promoting the enhancement of national capacities and ensuring effective advocacy of UN values, standards, principles and activities on behalf of the UN with the highest level of Government.
The Resident Coordinator’s Office supports the UN country team in:
- Strengthening the coordination of development activities within the UN and between the UN and development partners;
- Furthering coherence within the UN through joint strategic planning and programming of development activities;
- Supporting the harmonisation and simplification of business practices and administrative procedures;
- Strengthening joint communications, advocacy and reporting on the collective development work of the UN in the Kingdom of Bahrain;
- Engaging in the identification of innovative and sustainable resources of funding.
The Resident Coordinator in the Kingdom of Bahrain
Mr Khaled El Mekwad, from Egypt, has devoted over 30 years to public service. Prior to his current position, he served as UNIDO Regional Representative for Southern Africa based in Pretoria covering ten SADC countries, UNIDO Representative in Sudan with coverage for Djibouti and Yemen, and UNIDO Representative Lebanon with coverage for Jordan and Syria. During 14 years in the UN system, he addressed Industrial and Socio-economic Development, Environment, Poverty Reduction, Human Rights, and Post-war recovery in the Middle East & Africa.
Prior to the UN, he pursued an extensive Diplomatic career in his national capacity for 19 years where he served as Alternate Representative at the Permanent Mission of Egypt to the UN in Vienna, Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of Egypt in Dakar, and Political Officer at the Mission of Egypt to the EU in Brussels.
He obtained two post-graduate Diplomas in International Relations from the National School of Administration in Paris and the Institute for Diplomatic Studies of the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cairo. Mr El Mekwad also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Cairo University. In addition to Arabic, his mother tongue, he speaks fluent English and French.
