Kofi Atta Annan (;[1] 8 April 1938 – 18 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) from 1997 to 2006.[2] Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize.[3] He was the founder and chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation, as well as chairman of The Elders, an international organisation founded by Nelson Mandela.[4]
Annan studied economics at Macalester College, international relations at the Graduate Institute Geneva, and management at MIT. Annan joined the UN in 1962, working for the World Health Organization's Geneva office. He went on to work in several capacities at the UN Headquarters including serving as the Under-Secretary-General for peacekeeping between March 1992 and December 1996. He was appointed secretary-general on 13 December 1996 by the Security Council, and later confirmed by the General Assembly, making him the first office holder to be elected from the UN staff itself. He was re-elected for a second term in 2001 and was succeeded as secretary-general by Ban Ki-moon in 2007.
As secretary-general, Annan reformed the UN bureaucracy, worked to combat HIV/AIDS (especially in Africa) and launched the UN Global Compact. He was criticised for not expanding the Security Council and faced calls for his resignation after an investigation into the Oil-for-Food Programme, but was largely exonerated of personal corruption.[5] After the end of his term as secretary-general, he founded the Kofi Annan Foundation in 2007 to work on international development. In 2012, Annan was the UN–Arab League Joint Special Representative for Syria, to help find a resolution to the ongoing conflict there.[6][7] Annan quit after becoming frustrated with the UN's lack of progress with regards to conflict resolution.[8][9] In September 2016, Annan was appointed to lead a UN commission to investigate the Rohingya crisis.[10] He died in 2018 and was given a state funeral.
Kofi Annan was born in Kumasi in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) on 8 April 1938.[11] His twin sister Efua Atta, who died in 1991, shared the middle name Atta, which in the Akan language means "twin".[12] Annan and his sister were born into one of the country's Fante aristocratic families; both of their grandfathers and their uncle were Fante paramount chiefs.[13]
In the Akan names tradition, some children are named according to the day of the week they were born, sometimes in relation to how many children precede them. Kofi in Akan is the name that corresponds with Friday, the day on which Annan was born.[14] The last name Annan in Fante means fourth-born child. Annan said that his surname rhymes with "cannon" in English.[15]
From 1954 to 1957, Annan attended the elite Mfantsipim, an all-boys Methodist boarding school in Cape Coast founded in the 1870s. Annan said that the school taught him that "suffering anywhere, concerns people everywhere".[16] In 1957, the year Annan graduated from Mfantsipim, the Gold Coast gained independence from the UK and began using the name "Ghana".
In 1958, Annan began studying economics at the Kumasi College of Science and Technology, now the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology of Ghana. He received a Ford Foundation grant, enabling him to complete his undergraduate studies in economics at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, US, in 1961. Annan then completed a diplôme d'études approfondies DEA degree in International Relations at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1961 to 1962. After some years of work experience, he studied at the MIT Sloan School of Management[17] (1971–72) in the Sloan Fellows program and earned a master's degree in management.
Annan was fluent in English, French, Akan, and some Kru languages as well as other African languages.[18]
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