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 Ambassador James Victor Gbeho is a retired career
Diplomat of the Ghana Foreign Service who is currently an Advisor to
the President of Ghana on Foreign Affairs.
He worked in the then Ghana Foreign and Commonwealth
Service and later the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served in various
capacities at Ghana’s Diplomatic Missions abroad as well as in the
Ministry in Accra, Ghana.
He has been posted over the years as a diplomat to the
Ghana Missions in China, India, Nigeria, New York (UN/USA),
Germany, United Kingdom and Geneva (UN/Switzerland).
Ambassador Gbeho was posted as Deputy High
Commissioner to the Court of St. James (U.K.) in 1972 until 1976. He was
later appointed Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Ghana to the
European Offices of the United Nations in Geneva, with concurrent
accreditation to UNIDO in Vienna, Austria, from 1978 to 1980. He was
appointed Permanent Representative of Ghana to the United Nations in New
York in 1980 and served in that post until June 1990. He was also
concurrently accredited, for some of that period, to Cuba, Jamaica and
Trinidad and Tobago.
During that same period, Ambassador Gbeho held, among
others, the following important posts at the United Nations:
a)
Chairman of the First Committee (Political and Security).
b)
Chairman of Fourth Committee (Decolonisation).
c)
Chairman of the Disarmament Committee.
d)
Member of the Anti-Apartheid Committee and Chairman of
the Sub-Committee on the Implementation of Sanctions Against Apartheid
South Africa.
e)
Chairman of the Executive Council of the International
Convention Against Apartheid in Sports.
Ambassador James Victor Gbeho also held the following
positions during his tenure in Geneva as Ambassador and Permanent
Representative to the European Offices of the United Nations from 1978
to 1980:
1.
Chairman of UNCTAD IV’s Committee on Economic
Cooperation Among Developing Countries (ECDC) held in Manila,
Philippines in 1979, and
2.
Chairman of the Geneva - based UNCTAD’s Preparatory
Committee for the establishment of the Common Fund for Commodities,
1980-1982.
He was also concurrently accredited to the International
Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria.
In addition, Ambassador Gbeho was elected to the United
Nations Security Council from 1986-1987 during which period he served
twice as President of the Council.
Ambassador Gbeho has also served on or led many
delegations of Ghana to Sessions of the United Nations General Assembly,
Summit Meetings of the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM), Commonwealth
Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), Non-Aligned Summit and Ministerial
Meetings. He has attended and still attends several Ministerial and
Summit Meetings of the Organization of African Unity, African
Union (AU), and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
On return to Ghana in 1990, Ambassador Gbeho was
appointed, at various times, Director of the Non-Aligned
Movement Secretariat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Director of
State Protocol and also Acting Chief Director of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs.
He was appointed the Special Representative of the U.N.
Secretary-General in Somalia from 1994 to 1995 and between 1995 and 1996
Special Representative of the Chairman of ECOWAS in Liberia. In Liberia,
he exercised political oversight and responsibility necessary for the
implementation of the agreements reached at the Akosombo Talks and the
subsequent Accra Clarification Talks for the return of peace to war-torn
Liberia. In that respect, Ambassador Gbeho worked closely with the then
ECOWAS Secretariat and ECOMOG. He also led the ECOWAS Team that
negotiated the Status of Forces Agreement with the Government of Charles
Taylor in 1996.
In December 1997, Ambassador Gbeho became the Minister of
Foreign Affairs of Ghana, after a brief service as the Deputy Minister
of Foreign Affairs.
On leaving office in 2001, after his political party lost
the General Elections, Ambassador Gbeho was elected Member of
Parliament for the Anlo Constituency, in which capacity he served until
2004.
From 2005 to 2008 Ambassador Gbeho worked on occasion in
the offices of Flt-Lt. Jerry John Rawlings as the former President’s
Special Assistant. |
