About:

Udo K. Janz is currently Director of the UNHCR Office in New York, a post he assumed in February 2010, and is a member of UNHCR’s Senior Management Committee, having joined the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 1979 during the height of the Indo-Chinese refugee crisis in South East Asia. In his current capacity he is the High Commissioner’s Representative at the United Nations Secretariat, the General Assembly and the Security Council, and, inter alia, represented UNHCR (Nobel Peace Prize in 1954 and 1981) in April 2012 at the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Chicago.

During his long and distinguished career with UNHCR he has served in Indonesia (1979-1981), Thailand (1981-1983), Hong Kong (1989-1991) and Cambodia (1991-1994), whereupon he undertook an assignment at UNHCR’s Centre for Documentation and Research at Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland with responsibilities, inter alia, for the publication of UNHCR’s flagship journal, the Refugee Survey Quarterly, and the online publication of UNHCR’s RefWorld, a unique collection of human rights and humanitarian databases under a single portal.

From 2000-2005, Mr Janz was appointed first as Deputy Representative and later Representative of the UNHCR operation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and concurrently served as a member of the High Representatives’ ‘Board of Principals’. Immediately preceding his current assignment, he was assigned as UNHCR’s Deputy Director for Europe at Headquarters, predominantly responsible for UNHCR’s operations in Eastern Europe. Following the armed conflict in Georgia in August 2008, he also acted as Co-Moderator for the Working Group on Humanitarian Issues under the Geneva International Discussions in an effort to ensure access to all displaced populations in the conflict area for the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian assistance and protection.

From 1983 – 1989, he took leave from the United Nations and was employed as a Researcher at Amnesty International’s International Secretariat in London, UK. Prior to joining the United Nations, he was assigned from 1976 – 1979 with the German Development Service (DED) to Malaysia, before dedicating his professional life to the United Nations.

Mr Janz graduated from the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, and the Institute of Development Studies in Brighton, University of Sussex, UK, and holds an MPhil in Development Studies.

Mr Janz is a National of Germany, and is married to Elisabeth Janz Mayer-Rieckh with whom he has four children.