Kofi Annan Born: Ghana's Gift to Global Diplomacy

Kofi Annan grew up in Kumasi, Ghana, the son of a Fante chief and an Asante mother, studied economics in Minnesota, and spent his entire career within the United Nations system before being appointed Secretary-General in 1997, the first person from sub-Saharan Africa to hold the position. Born on April 8, 1938, in Kumasi, then part of the British Gold Coast, Annan attended the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi before winning a Ford Foundation scholarship to Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. He continued his studies at the Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva and MIT's Sloan School of Management. He joined the UN in 1962 and worked his way through the organization for over three decades, serving in the World Health Organization, the High Commissioner for Refugees, and peacekeeping operations. He became head of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations in 1993, a position he held during the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and the Srebrenica massacre of 1995, two catastrophic failures of UN peacekeeping that haunted his career. As Secretary-General, he publicly acknowledged the UN's failure in Rwanda, something the institution had been reluctant to do. He commissioned an independent inquiry that concluded the UN had failed to act on intelligence that genocide was being planned and had withdrawn forces at the moment they were most needed. His willingness to confront the organization's shortcomings was unusual for a career insider and earned him respect from critics. He pushed for reform of the UN, advocating for the Millennium Development Goals adopted in 2000, which set targets for reducing poverty, improving health, and expanding education worldwide. He shared the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize with the United Nations "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world." His second term was complicated by the Iraq War, the Oil-for-Food scandal, and sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers. He left office in 2006, having navigated a decade of crises with a diplomat's calm and an insider's understanding of institutional limitations. He died on August 18, 2018, at 80, in Bern, Switzerland.