Valerie Amos, Baroness Amos

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Valerie Amos, Baroness Amos bigraphy, stories - British diplomat

Valerie Amos, Baroness Amos : biography

13 March 1954 –

Valerie Ann Amos, Baroness Amos, PC (born 13 March 1954) is the eighth and current UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. Before her appointment to the UN, she had been British High Commissioner to Australia. She was made a Labour life peer in 1997 and served as Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council. When Amos was appointed Secretary of State for International Development on 12 May 2003, following the resignation of Clare Short, she became the first black woman to sit in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. She left the Cabinet when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister. She was then nominated to become the European Union Special Representative to the African Union by Brown. Prime Minister’s Office In July 2010 Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon announced Baroness Amos’s appointment to the role of Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.

Other positions

Amos has also been Deputy Chair of the Runnymede Trust (1990–98), a Trustee of the Institute for Public Policy Research, a non-executive Director of the University College London Hospitals Trust, a Trustee of Voluntary Services Overseas, Chair of the Afiya Trust, a director of Hampstead Theatre and Chair of the Board of Governors of the Royal College of Nursing Institute.

Early life

Amos was born in British Guiana (now Guyana in South America), and attended Bexley Technical High School for Girls (now Townley Grammar School for Girls), Townley Road, Bexleyheath, where she was the first black deputy Head Girl. She completed a degree in Sociology at the University of Warwick (1973–76), and also later took courses in cultural studies at the University of Birmingham and the University of East Anglia.

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator

In 2010 United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the appointment of Valerie Amos, as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. In March 2012 she visited Syria on behalf of the UN to press the Syrian government to allow access to all parts of Syria to help people affected by the 2011-2012 Syrian uprising.

Personal life

Amos is an enthusiast of cricket and talked about her love of the game with Jonathan Agnew on Test Match Special during the lunch break of the first day of the England v New Zealand test at Old Trafford in May 2008. BBC Sport, 20 May 2008 BBC Sport, 7 July 2008.

After resigning from the cabinet, Baroness Amos took up a directorship with Travant Capital, a Nigerian private equity fund launched in 2007. Travant Capital In the House of Lords Register of Members Interests she lists this directorship as remunerated. At launch over one third of Travant’s first equity fund came from CDC (a government-owned plc). CDC’s investment decisions are taken completely independently of external influences (including its shareholder) and the decision to invest in Travant by CDC was taken before Amos was appointed to the board of Travant.

Baroness Amos has never married and has no children. She was listed as one of the fifty best-dressed over 50s by the Guardian in March 2013.

House of Lords

Amos was created a life peer in August 1997 as Baroness Amos, of Brondesbury in the London Borough of Brent. In the House of Lords she was a co-opted member of the Select Committee on European Communities Sub-Committee F (Social Affairs, Education and Home Affairs) 1997-98. From 1998 to 2001 she was a Government Whip in the House of Lords and also a spokesperson on Social Security, International Development and Women’s Issues as well as one of the Government’s spokespersons in the House of Lords on Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. Baroness Amos was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs on 11 June 2001, with responsibility for Africa; Commonwealth; Caribbean; Overseas Territories; Consular Issues and FCO Personnel. She was replaced by Chris Mullin.