U.N. Secretary General’s
Personal Humanitarian Envoy to the Middle East
Catherine Bertini is the Personal Humanitarian Envoy to the Middle East for the United Nations Secretary General and the former Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme, the largest global food agency in the world. While serving as Director, Ms. Bertini made significant achievements in the dual mandate of the agency: to avert starvation in humanitarian crises through emergency operations, and to promote long-term development projects aimed at breaking the deeply rooted hunger-poverty cycle. Under her leadership, the global food aid rose from 22 percent in 1993 to 36 percent in 1998.
Before her work with the World Food Programme, Ms. Bertini worked in the United States Government. She was Assistant Secretary for Food and Consumer Services in the Department of Agriculture, where she directed 13 assistance programs and founded the Breastfeeding Promotion Consortium that saw an increase in the number of nursing mothers in the United States rise from 38.3 percent to 50.4 percent. In 1996 the London Times Magazine named Ms. Bertini one of the World’s Most Powerful Women.
Ms. Bertini graduated from State University of New York at Albany and was a fellow of the Institute of Politics in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She has received honorary doctorates from the State University of New York, McGill University in Montreal, and Pine Manor College in Boston.