Bangladesh decides to appoint Rabab Fatima as new envoy to UN

The government has decided to appoint Rabab Fatima, the current ambassador of Bangladesh to Japan, as the new ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations in New York, the foreign ministry said.

She will replace Ambassador Masud Bin Momen who, a government official indicated to bdnews24.com, is going to be the next foreign secretary of Bangladesh when the current Secretary Md Shahidul Haque's extended tenure ends in December.

Ambassador Fatima is a career foreign service officer belonging to the 1986 batch of Bangladesh Civil Service’s foreign affairs cadre. She worked in Bangladesh missions in New York, Geneva, Kolkata and Beijing.

She served in various capacities primarily in the United Nations Wing at the foreign ministry.

Ambassador Fatima worked for two international organisations on lien -- the Commonwealth Secretariat in London as head of human rights between 2006 and 2007 and the International Organisation for Migration as the regional representative for South Asia in Dhaka from 2007 to 2011. Later, she worked as the regional coordinator and adviser for South and South West Asia and regional adviser for climate change and migration in IOM’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok from 2012 to 2015.

Fatima obtained her master’s in international relations and diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the US.

She is married to a fellow diplomat, Kazi Imtiaz Hossain, currently serving as the ambassador of Bangladesh to France. They are blessed with a daughter.