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Prof. Ibrahim Agboola Gambari B.A., M.A., Ph.D, D.Hum.Litt., CFR (born on November 24, 1944 in Ilorin, Kwara State) is a Nigerian scholar and diplomat. He was Minister for External Affairs between 1984 and 1985 and is the current Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations (USG) for the Department of Political Affairs (DPA). He was appointed on June 10, 2005 and assumed the post on July 1 of that year.

Gambari attended King's College, Lagos. At the London School of Economics he received a bachelor's degree in political science. From 1970 to 1974, he studied at Columbia University, New York, where he completed both his M.A. and his Ph.D in International Relations.

Gambari began his teaching career in 1969 at City University of New York before working at University of Albany. Later, he taught at Ahmadu Bello University, in Zaria, Kaduna State, the second largest university in Africa. From 1986-1989, the USG was Visiting Professor at three universities in Washington, D.C.: Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Georgetown University and Howard University. He has also been a Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution also in Washington and a Resident Scholar at the Bellagio Study and Conference Center, the Rockefeller Foundation-run center in Italy. He was accorded, honoris causa, the title of Doctor of Humane Letters (D.Hum.Litt.) from the University of Bridgeport. He is a member of the Johns Hopkins University's Society of Scholars. He was decorated with the title of Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR) by the Government of Nigeria.

In the 1990s, Gambari was a senior delegate of the Nigerian mission to the General Assembly. Later, he became his country's Permanent Representative during military rule. In 1999, he began working with the Secretariat. He had also served as Special Representative of the UN Mission to Angola from September 2002 to February 2003. Previous to his appointed as USG, Gambari was Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Africa where he was responsible for promoting African development and New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). Twice he presided over the Security Council. He was president of the Special Committee Against Apartheid.

In November 2006, Gambari undertook a mission to Myanmar for four days (November 9 to November 12) to encourage greater respect for human rights there. While in Myanmar, the USG first met with the junta leaders in the new administrative capital, Nay Pyi Taw where he held talks with Than Shwe and Soe Win. Later, on November 11, in Rangoon, he met with Nobel laureate and prisoner of conscience Aung San Suu Kyi. .^[1][2] The USG had also traveled to Myanmar in May 2006.

Most recently, in September 2007 Gambari visited Myanmar as a UN special envoy, to urge that country's military regime to show restraint in handling widespread protests. The success, if any, of his visit was not immediately apparent. The Times quoted one female activist as saying, “We hoped for so much and what we feel is that he achieved nothing... He should have visited the places of the demonstrations – like Pakkoku and the Shwedagon Pagoda. He should have visited the infamous Insein Prison, then he would have seen the truth."[2]

As of November 2007, Gambari continues to visit Myanmar. "I'd wanted very much to spend more time in Yangoon, but the authorities organized all my meetings except the last three or four hours. I think Prof. Paulo Sergio Pinheiro who is the special rapporteur on human rights .. saw a wider variety of people, particularly detainees, and I think we should await his report." ^[3]

• United Nations 21: Better Service, Better Value, Better Management, Progress Report of the Efficiency Board to the Secretary-General (1996) (co-authored with Rafeeuddin Ahmed, Jamsheed Marker, J. E. Connor and Jean-Claude Milleron) (ISBN 0-7881-7387-1)
• Report of the Security Council mission to Rwanda (UN Security Council mission chairman) (1995)
• Theory and Reality in Foreign Policy Making: Nigeria After the Second Republic (1992) (ISBN 0-391-03743-9)
• Political and Comparative Dimensions of Regional Integration: The Case of Ecowas (1991) (ISBN 0-391-03696-3)

United Nations Portal

• Department of Political Affairs, United Nations Headquarters, Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari Under-Secretary-General/Special Adviser on Africa, New York, January, 2000 (biography)
• List of recent speeches