Kofi Annan (8 April 1938 - 18 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat and statesman. He served as the the 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations (January 1997 to December 2006) and was the founder and chair of the Kofi Annan Foundation. In 2001, he and the United Nations (UN) were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. Kofi Annan joined the UN system in 1962 as an administrative and budget officer with the World Health Organization in Geneva.He later served with the Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa, the UN Emergency Force (UNEF II) in Ismailia, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva, and in various senior posts in New York dealing with human resources, budget, finance, and staff security. Immediately before becoming Secretary-General, he was Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping. As Secretary-General of the UN he was a constant advocate for human rights, the rule of law, the Millennium Development Goals and Africa, and sought to bring the organisation closer to the global public by forging ties with civil society, the private sector and other partners. During his tenure he created the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, adopted UN’s first-ever counter-terrorism strategy, and encouraged Member States to embrace their inherent “responsibility to protect” people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. His hands-on diplomatic approach resulted in him intervening personally in matters of global discord. In the 1990s, racial tensions were triggered over the display of an African man's remains in a Spanish museum. Annan directly and repeatedly engaged with the Mayor of Banyoles and the curator of Darder Museum of Nature and Science to ensure that the dignity of the person derogatorily known as El Negro de Banyoles was restored, through the return and reburial of his remains in African soil. This became one of the first human ancestor return cases on the continent. In his latter years, Annan Mr. Annan became the founding Chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which works for a food secure and prosperous Africa by promoting rapid, sustainable agricultural growth based on smallholder farmers. He also chaired the African Progress Panel until the end of 2017, which advocated at the highest level for equitable and sustainable development in Africa. He was a member of The Elders, an independent group of global leaders who work together for peace and human rights, and in 2013 was appointed its Chair.
