UN chief recommends US foreign policy expert Tony Lake to head UNICEF

more images

more images

more images

more images

more images

more images

UN chief recommends Tony Lake to head UNICEF

UNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday selected U.S. foreign policy expert Tony Lake, who was an adviser to President Barack Obama, as his candidate to head UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency.

UNICEF’s board must approve the selection, and is expected to do so.

Lake, 70, would replace Ann Veneman, a former U.S. secretary of agriculture who was appointed by former President George W. Bush. She announced in late December that she would not seek a second five-year term as UNICEF’s executive director. Her term ends April 30.

The head of UNICEF has always been an American, largely because the United States is the largest contributor to the agency, which is active in 190 countries.

Ban told a news conference that Lake “brings with him a wealth of experience after a long and distinguished career with the United States government.”

He thanked Veneman “for her immense dedication, energy and determination to improve the lives of children around the world” and said “she leaves behind an organization well-equipped for the enormous challenges ahead.”

Neither Lake nor Veneman attended the briefing.

U.S. President Barack Obama welcomed Ban’s selection of Lake, saying in a statement that he “has a deep commitment to UNICEF and to improving the welfare of children.”

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said Lake “will bring extraordinary experience, strategic vision, passion and energy to UNICEF’s essential work.”

“Over the course of his remarkable career, he has dedicated himself to advancing the rights, protection, welfare, development, and education of children,” she said in a statement Tuesday.

Rice, who was Obama’s chief foreign policy adviser during his presidential election campaign, sent a letter to U.N. ambassadors last month recommending Lake for the job.

She noted that Lake has served nine years on the board of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, including serving as chair from 2004-2007.

Lake served as national security adviser to former President Bill Clinton, but in the 2008 presidential campaign he backed Obama rather than Hillary Clinton and became a foreign policy adviser to the Illinois senator.

He was considered a contender to be U.S. secretary of state when Obama won the presidency, but the job went to Hillary Clinton.

Lake joined the Foreign Service in 1962, did two tours in Vietnam and in 1969 accompanied then-National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger on his first secret meeting with North Vietnamese negotiators in Paris. He worked on several Democratic presidential campaigns and was one of Clinton’s chief foreign policy advisers when he ran for president in 1992.

Lake is a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

Charlie MacCormack, president and CEO of Save The Children in the United States, told the AP: “The larger children’s movement of citizens and NGOs and scholars and parents are hopeful that Tony will bring vision and experience and commitment to completing the children’s agenda and moving us even more rapidly to the day when every child has the rights to education, health, safety and participation truly met.” NGOs are non-governmental organizations.

MacCormack added that “Tony has a lifetime of experience working toward this goal.”