Powerful woman – Baroness Valerie Amos – UN Under Secretary

Baroness Valerie Amos – Politician
England
Valerie Ann Amos, Baroness Amos, PC is the eighth and current UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. Before her appointment to the UN, she had been British High Commissioner to Australia. She was made a Labour life peer in 1997 and served as Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council. When Amos was appointed Secretary of State for International Development on 12 May 2003, following the resignation of Clare Short, she became the first black woman to sit in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. She left the Cabinet when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister. She was then nominated to become the European Union Special Representative to the African Union by Gordon Brown. In July 2010 Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon announced Baroness Amos’ appointment to the role of Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.