UN chief appoints new head for Asia, Pacific bureau at UNDP

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appointed Kanni Wignaraja of Sri Lanka as the new director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific at UN Development Programme (UNDP), his press office has said.

Wignaraja succeeds Haoliang Xu of China, who has been recently appointed as director of UNDP's Bureau for Policy and Programme Support, Xinhua news agency reported.

Wignaraja recently served as director of the Bureau for Management Services of UNDP and as special adviser to the UNDP administrator, roles that she has performed throughout 2019, after working as the director of the UN Development Operations Coordination Office from 2014 to 2018, the office said in a statement on Monday.

Wignaraja holds a Master's degree in public administration (development economics) from Princeton University and a Bachelor of Arts (economics) from Bryn Mawr College of the United States.