The former Unicef Latin America and Caribbean regional director, Garry Conille has arrived to Port-au-Prince on 2 June 2024 as the Presidential Transition Council appointed prime minister for Haiti. He is in charge of leading that country out of the very deep crisis it currently is experiencing.
To say that his task is monumental is not an exaggeration, as the gangs roam the streets of Port-au-Prince and continue to assault businesses and people await Police convoys to move in that city.
Trained as a medical doctor, Conille previously has already served for a year as an interim prime minister of Haiti upon the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
As reported, most international organizations applauded the appointment of Conille who has the backing of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Caribbean group, Caricom. Perhaps as a harbinger of better things to come, some airlines have renewed flights to Haiti.
Late last week the first flight carrying humanitarian aid arrived from Panama on a UN-chartered aircraft. According to the spokesperson for the UN Secretary General, the plane carried some 15 tons of medical supplies and medicines destined to the Unicef offices and the World Health Organization (WHO). The UN effort is aimed at providing some help to the displaced population.
Conille brings to the task in Haiti is recent skills developed as Unicef Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean in January 2023. Conille had been responsible for the leadership, supervision and orientation of 36 countries and territories, representing Unicef to governments, donors, the private sector and civil society in the region.
Conille is an international civil servant with over 20 years of experience as a development practitioner, most of which with the United Nations and international NGOs.
Before his appointment as a Unicef regional director, Conille was resident coordinator to the Unicef multi-country office in Jamaica covering Jamaica, Bahamas, Bermuda, Turks and Caicos Islands and Cayman Islands (2020-2022), resident coordinator in Burundi (2017-2020) and as under secretary-general for Programmes and Operations with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC, 2015-2017). He also served as regional director for the Africa Region of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS, 2014-2015) and head of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) support unit of the UN Development Programme (UNDP, 2008-2010). He began his career with the UN in Haiti, with the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in 1999.
In the wake of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, Conille served as Chief of Staff to the office of the United Nations Special Envoy for Haiti, where he helped coordinate Haiti’s reconstruction efforts. In 2011, he was nominated Prime Minister of Haiti, a position that he served until 2012, when he was named senior advisor to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in her role as co-chair of the UN High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
Conille holds a medical degree from the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy of the State University of Haiti and a Master of Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
He speaks English, French and Haitian Creole. He is married and has twin daughters.
Read more:
CBS News
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
3 June 2024