Ahmad Fawzi

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Ahmad Fawzi, 2015.

Ahmad Fawzi is an Egyptian-born news, media and communication expert, currently serving as Director, a.i., of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, with overall responsibility for the Geneva headquarters’ press and media, as well as extensive public information programmes and guided tours through the historic Palais de Nations.

He has held senior positions in the United Nations and global media outlets around the world. Since 1992, he has managed crisis communications and served as the interface between the UN and the global media in conflict areas and during highly charged political negotiations. His work involves communicating the broad range of UN activities to the global media and public and, in countries in and emerging from conflict, including Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Timor Leste, promoting free, independent and pluralistic media.

Early life and career

Born and raised in Cairo, Fawzi started his professional life in Egyptian radio.

He worked as a producer, editor and nightly news anchor on Egyptian Radio and Television (ETV) before joining Reuters Television in London, then called Visnews. At Visnews, he was news editor and bureau chief in Prague during and after the break-up of the eastern bloc; Middle East Bureau Chief in Cairo; and Americas News Operations Manager in New York.

He moved to the political arena and served as Press Secretary and Chef de Cabinet for Egypt’s First Lady Jehan El-Sadat during the period of detente and peacebuilding with Israel. He was a member of the delegation on President Anwar Sadat’s historic visit to Jerusalem in November 1977.

United Nations

Fawzi has worked for three UN Secretaries-General: Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon, and served as spokesperson and communication chief for leading peace negotiators including Kofi Annan, Lakhdar Brahimi, Jan Eliasson, Ian Martin and Sergio Vieira de Mello.

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Kofi Annan (right) and Ahmad Fawzi (left).

He first joined the Organization as Deputy Spokesperson for Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and was later appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan as director of the UN’s information office in London (1997-2003). He served as chief of the Department of Public Information’s News and Media Division, managing the UN’s multilingual daily news and media products from 2003-2010, including photo, radio, print, television, social media and websites.

To increase transparency and global awareness of the UN’s work, Fawzi and his senior management team created new partnerships and overhauled content and delivery methods. During his tenure, social media for the first time became a regular part of the UN’s daily communication output, with multi-language accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Weibo and others.

UN Radio and UN Television were transformed to better meet the programming and delivery needs of global media partners. Fawzi’s team began using internet and satellite feeds to transmit rough cuts and soundbites that members of the media could access live and on-demand. Working with APTN and UNICEF, they developed a new series of daily news video-clips called UNifeed. They also created the magazine-style television programme 21st Century about the work and issues on the UN’s agenda. Produced in a way that allows broadcasters to use segments in their own programming, 21st Century is today aired around the world and shown on airline in-flight programming.

Fawzi also served as an advisor for the UN’s senior management. As a member of the strategic group that met regularly to make recommendations to the Secretary-General and his team, Fawzi contributed to formulating UN public information strategies and promoting interaction with the press. He was called upon by areas of the UN and organizations in the wider UN family to review resources and needs, identify priority issues and develop concrete proposals for improving outreach.

Peacekeeping, peacebuilding and political missions

Fawzi has had numerous UN assignments in countries in and emerging from conflict, and during high-level peace and nation-building negotiations, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Timor Leste and throughout the Middle East.

During 2012, he was communication advisor and spokesperson for to two successive envoys working to end the conflict in Syria: former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and later senior diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, as part of the Joint United Nations and League of Arab States mission.

After the fall of Tripoli in 2011, he accompanied Ian Martin, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Libya, to negotiate with the transitional government and develop a UN political mission in the country, which became known as UNSMIL.

During the international efforts to resolve the conflict in Darfur, Sudan, Fawzi was spokesperson for the United Nations-African Union mediation team, headed by Jan Eliasson, that brought the parties together in Sirte, Libya, for face-to-face talks in 2007.

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Ahmad Fawzi leaving Sirte, Libya after Darfur Peace Talks in 2007.

Fawzi was part of the UN’s efforts to build peace in Iraq 2003 and again in 2004. He was spokesperson and director of information for Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq, as he outlined and set up a UN presence in the country after the US invasion of March 2003. In 2004, Fawzi was spokesperson for UN Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi, during the political transition that culminated in Iraq regaining its sovereignty in June 2004.

Fawzi was Spokesperson for the 10-day, round-the-clock “Bonn Talks on Afghanistan” led by Lakhdar Brahimi in 2001. The Talks brought Afghan groups together to develope a plan for governing the country after the fall of the Taliban. They attracted such large numbers of media that Germany, as host, moored a ship outside Konigswinter to accommodate them, and Fawzi’s daily press conferences were held on board. After the Talks, he travelled with Mr. Brahimi as part of the team that set up the new UN mission in the country, UNAMA.

Other special assignments included acting chief of communications for the UN in Timor Leste in 2001, during the lead-up to the first free and fair elections following the country’s historic 1999 referendum.

When Secretary-General Annan went to Baghdad in 1998 in a last-ditch effort to convince Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to open his palaces to UN weapons inspectors and avert a military strike, Fawzi was sent in advance to manage the intense media spotlight on the ground, and during the visit worked with the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General at the time, Fred Eckhard.

Personal

Married with two daughters, Fawzi is fluent in Arabic and English and conversant in French and Russian.