Ex-UN Secretary General And Nobel Peace Prize Koffi Anan is Dead

Former UN Secretary-General and Nobel Peace Prize winner Kofi Annan has died at age eighty, a United Nations agency confirmed Saturday.

Annan, who was born in Ghana in 1938, served as
the seventh UN Secretary-General, from 1997 to 2006, and was the first to rise from within the ranks of the United Nations staffs.

He had been a member of The Elders, a group of world leaders operating for human rights, since it was founded in 2007.
In 2013, he became its chairman.

He was married with three children.

Kofi Atta Annan,born 8 April 1938,  was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1997 to December 2006.

Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize.

He was the founder and chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation, as well as chairman of The Elders,an international organization founded by Nelson Mandela.

Born in Kumasi, Annan went on to study economy at Macalester college, international relations from the Graduate Institute Geneva and management at MIT.

Annan joined the UN in 1962, working for the world Health Organization’s Geneva office.

He went on to work in several capacities at the UN Headquarters as well as serving Under-Secretary-General for peacekeeping between March 1992 and December 1996.

He was appointed as the Secretary-General on 13 December 1996 by the security Council, and later confirmed by the General Assembly, making him the first office holder to be elected  from the UN staff itself.

He was re-elected for a second term in 2001, and was succeeded as Secretary-General by Ban Ki-moon on 1st January 2007.