UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday appointed Ivana Zivkovic of Croatia as UN assistant secretary-general, assistant administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and director of UNDP's Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Zivkovic succeeds Mirjana Spoljaric Egger of Switzerland who has been elected as the new president of the International Committee of the Red Cross and to whom the secretary-general is grateful for her commitment and dedicated service to the United Nations, according to a press note issued by the UN chief's office.
Zivkovic is a senior Croatian diplomat, currently serving as the director-general for Economic Affairs and Development Cooperation in the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of Croatia. She has held several positions in the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Croatia and had a leading role in setting up the framework for international development cooperation in Croatia.
She holds a master's degree in international economics from the Faculty of Economics, University of Zagreb and a bachelor of economics from the University of Zagreb. ■
