The UN Resident Coordinator Office

The UN Resident Coordinator leads the UN Country Team, as the designated representative of the Secretary-General for development operations.

Working closely with the national government, the UN Resident Coordinator advocates for the mandates of the United Nations while drawing on the support and expertise of the global UN system.

The Office of the Resident Coordinator (RCO) supports and facilitates cooperation and coordination among programmes, funds and agencies in the Maldives.

The UN Resident Coordinator in Maldives

Ms. Catherine Haswell is the UN Resident Coordinator for the Republic of Maldives. She presented her credentials to HEP Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on 16 February 2020, and formally assumed her duties on the same day.

Ms. Haswell brings 24 years of development and humanitarian experience in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East.  For the last decade she served in senior roles in the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA) in strategy and programme management. In her most recent role in UNECE, she led on deployment of regional technical cooperation expertise to countries in Europe and Central Asia in support of the 2030 Agenda, in line with the reform of the UN Development System.  Prior to that, Ms. Haswell served as an adviser on humanitarian and development policy and programmes to senior mission leadership of integrated political and peacekeeping missions in Iraq, Liberia, and Sudan (2005-2009).

Ms. Haswell previously held programme and management roles with UNICEF in Darfur, the occupied Palestinian territories and Timor Leste.

Ms. Haswell holds a Master’s in International and Public Law from the University of Melbourne, Australia.