The UN Resident Coordinator Office
The Resident Coordinator’s Office works under the direct leadership of the Resident Coordinator and is comprised of professional officers based in the Jerusalem, Ramallah and Gaza offices. A key aspect of the RCO’s work is to enhance coordination and coherence between the 24 humanitarian and development agencies that comprise the UN Country Team and with the political mandate of UNSCO. It also engages with the donor community, the Palestinian Authority, the Government of Israel and civil society on the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of aid policies and programming.
The UN Resident Coordinator in Palestine
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed on 13 June 2025, Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov of Azerbaijan as his new Deputy Special Coordinator and Resident Coordinator, Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO). Dr. Alakbarov will also serve as Humanitarian Coordinator. He succeeds Muhannad Hadi of Jordan, to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for his dedication and service. The Secretary-General also thanks Sarah Poole of the United States, who has been providing steadfast support in an ad interim capacity.
Dr. Alakbarov brings more than 30 years of extensive international experience in executive leadership, strategic planning and policy-making, development programming and management, and humanitarian response. He has been serving as the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Ethiopia since 2023. Prior to this, he held the position of Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), where he was also the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, from 2021 to 2023. In Afghanistan, he also served as UN Resident Coordinator ad interim in 2020.
Dr. Alakbarov has served in several positions within the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), including as Deputy Executive Director for Management and United Nations Reforms (ad interim) and Director of the Policy and Strategy Division in New York, Country Representative in Haiti, Deputy Regional Director of the Regional Office for Arab States in Cairo and Head of the Office in South Sudan. Prior to these positions, he served in various roles at UNFPA supporting country programmes in Arab States, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. His roles included Programme Officer covering Sudan, Somalia, and Iraq and Humanitarian Response Officer for Operations, in Afghanistan, Palestine and the Great Lakes Region. From 1992 to 1995, he was an Assistant Professor at Azerbaijan Medical University and a practicing physician.
Dr. Alakbarov holds M.D. and Ph.D. degrees in internal medicine from Azerbaijan Medical University and a Master of Arts in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He is fluent in Azerbaijani, English, French, Russian and Turkish.
