United Nations Secretary-General BAN Ki-moon today announced the appointment of Michael Keating of the United Kingdom as his Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan. Mr Keating will also serve as the United Nations Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator.

Mr Keating succeeds Robert Watkins of Canada, who has been appointed as the Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Coordinator for Lebanon. The Secretary-General is grateful to Mr. Watkins for his dedicated service to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). 

He brings to this position extensive experience in planning and managing responses to complex humanitarian emergencies and post-conflict recovery programmes in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa. He currently serves as Director of Development and Special Adviser to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan.

Mr Keating previously served as the Executive Director of the Africa Progress Panel in Geneva. Prior to this assignment, he served as the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Malawi and as the Director of Socio-Economic Affairs in the UN Secretary-General’s office for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO), in Jerusalem and Gaza. From 1999 to 2001 he was Adviser to the Administrator of UNDP in New York. He also served as Adviser to the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator to Afghanistan from 1997 to 1999. Earlier in his career, Mr. Keating worked for the UN Office for Humanitarian and Economic Assistance to Afghanistan, initially as Executive Assistant to the newly appointed Under Secretary-General, and then as Head of the Peshawar Field Office in Pakistan.

Mr Keating holds an M.A. in History from the University of Cambridge.

Born in 1959 in Kampala, Uganda, Mr. Keating is married and has four children.