Ulaanbaatar
Jaap van Hierden Appointed as United Nations Resident Coordinator in Mongolia
Politics
Ulaanbaatar, January 7, 2025 /MONTSAME/. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres appointed Jaap van Hierden of the Netherlands as the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Mongolia on January 1, 2025.
Mr. van Hierden has more than 30 years of experience in development, humanitarian action, and peacebuilding, including establishing, managing, and leading offices and projects and strategic, policy, operational, managerial, and coordination roles and responsibilities. Starting January 2025, he will oversee and coordinate the unified management of UN system organizations in Mongolia.
Before his appointment to Mongolia, Mr. van Hierden served as the first UN Resident Coordinator of the new UN Multi-Country Office in Micronesia hosted by Pohnpei/Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) supporting Palau, FSM, Marshall Islands, Nauru, and Kiribati. In this capacity, he led the UN Country Team to ensure their support to achieve national development goals.
In addition to this role, Mr. van Hierden has served in various other capacities. From 2018 to 2021 he worked with Cordaid in Afghanistan. He worked with UNOPS in the Philippines and Cambodia from 2013 to 2016 and for UNOPS in various roles in Copenhagen, New York, Kuala Lumpur, and Bangkok from 1995 to 2013. He worked for UNDP in Bangkok in 1994, and from 1991 to 1993 he served in Sierra Leone with the United Nations Capital Development Fund.
Mr. van Hierden holds a master’s degree in Agricultural Economics from Wageningen University. He lives with his wife and four children.
