Mr. Awad was appointed by the United Nations Secretary General in February and assumed his duties on 1 March 2022.
Immediately prior to this appointment, Mr. Awad was Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative. He worked on issues related to vital sectors and drivers for economic and social change in fragile states and states in transition.
Earlier on, Mr. Awad served in dual capacity as United Nations Regional Refugee Coordinator for the Syria and Iraq Situations, and as Director of the Bureau for the Middle East and North Africa of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva, Switzerland. In this capacity, he led the UN Refugee Agency’s humanitarian response in the Middle East and North Africa. He coordinated over 9,000 staff and 270 organizations, in close partnership with the respective governments, delivering protection and humanitarian aid to some 20 million displaced persons in the region and in the context of some of the most severe displacement crises of the century. Prior to this, he also worked extensively in the Middle East, including in Yemen during the Somali boat people crisis in 1992, and in Iraq and Jordan, during the first Gulf War in 1990-1991. He again worked in the capacity of Regional Coordinator for the Iraq crisis during the second Gulf War in 2003.
Mr. Awad was engaged in humanitarian action with the United Nations for over 30 years, where he distinguished himself in some of the most challenging field operations in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia.