Michelle Gyles-McDonnough becomes the highest serving Jamaican within the UN system
Michelle Gyles-McDonnough, a Jamaican has been appointed as Deputy Assistant Administrator and Deputy Regional Director to the Bureau for Asia and the Pacific (RBAP) for the United Nations.
Michelle has been most recently the UN Resident Coordinator for Malaysia, UNDP Resident Representative for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam, and UNFPA Representative for Malaysia since July 2013.
Prior to this appointment (2008-2013), Michelle was UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative for Barbados and the OECS.
She was Programme Adviser, Operations Support Group in the Executive Office of UNDP (2006-2008), and a Regional Adviser in Jamaica for six months during 2005. She also served as Coordinator for the Grenada Recovery Programme (2004-2005).
During 2004 she was a Teaching Assistant at Harvard University, and assisted in course design for the Master’s Degree Courses on Global Governance and Managing Development in a Changing World.
From 1999-2004 she was Chief, UNDP Caribbean Sub-Regional Resource Facility (SURF) in Trinidad and Tobago.
Before joining UNDP, Michelle worked with the Organisation of American States (OAS) in Washington D.C. (1996-1999) as Adviser to the Secretary-General. She was Legal Adviser/Alternate Representative for the Embassy of Jamaica and Permanent Mission of Jamaica to the OAS, and practised with Winthrop Stimson Putnam and Roberts as an Attorney specializing in international trade. Michelle began her career in 1990 in Zimbabwe as a Law Clerk for Harare Legal Projects Centre.
Michelle holds an M.A. in Public Administration from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, USA, a Juris Doctor (with honours in International and Foreign Law) from Columbia University School of Law, USA, and an A.B. in Economics with a minor in French from Bryn Mawr College, USA.
Michelle will take up her new assignment on 15 January 2017.
