UNITED NATIONS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th March, 2019) Najat Rochdi of Morocco has been appointed as United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) Senior Humanitarian Advisor for Syria, UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen announced in a statement on Tuesday.
"Pleased to announce that Najat Rochdi joining as Senior Humanitarian Adviser," Pedersen said in a statement posted on Twitter. "Looking forward to her chairing the ISSG's (the International Syria Support Group) Humanitarian Task Force and helping facilitate crucial humanitarian access and protection of civilians in Syria."
Rochdi succeeds former adviser Jan Egland. She has extensive experience in humanitarian affairs, having served as the UN Secretary-General's Deputy Special Representative for the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), as having held various humanitarian roles at the UN Development Programme (UNDP) since 2013.
Prior to working at the United Nations, Rochdi held several senior-level positions in the Moroccan government and has also been a professor at the College Royal and the Information Sciences University in Morocco's Rabat.
Over the course of the armed conflict in Syria, the United Nations has been providing humanitarian aid to the country and has engaged in talks both with the Syrian government and the opposition Syrian Negotiation Committee. In 2017, several rounds of negotiations on the Syrian settlement were held in Geneva under the auspices of the organization; however, the two sides to the conflict did not talk directly to each other.
The United Nations has also been helping to draft the list of the Syrian constitutional committee members.
