Secretary-General appoints Mr. Mohamed El Zarkani of Egypt as the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Saudi Arabia

The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Mr. Mohamed El Zarkani of Egypt as the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Saudi Arabia, with the host Government’s approval.  

Mr. El Zarkani has more than 16 years of experience in development, most notably on local economic development, labour market reform, research and innovation, and safe and orderly management of human mobility.  

Before his appointment as UN Resident Coordinator in Saudi Arabia, he has served as the Chief of Mission of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the Kingdom of Bahrain, where he was responsible for providing technical assistance to the Government on all issues related to labour market reform, combatting trafficking in persons, migration environment and climate change, immigration and border governance, as well as migration and development. 

He has also served as the UN Resident Coordinator a.i in the Kingdom of Bahrain from November 2020 until April 2022. He also oversaw IOM’s technical cooperation programmes with the Human Rights Commission in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratization in the United Arab Emirates. Prior to this, Mr. El Zarkani worked with IOM in Egypt and Kuwait as the head of community stabilization and human development and labour mobility programmes and with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Egypt as the national coordinator of a local economic development programme.  

Prior to working in the UN system, he worked with Nahdet El Mahrousa, an Egyptian Non-Governmental Organization focusing on promoting a culture of research and development for Egyptian youth. 

A national of Egypt, Mr. Mohamed El Zarkani holds a bachelor’s degree on International Relations from the Webster University in the Netherlands.