Former United Nations Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, is dead.
He was aged 80.
The UN Migration Agency which confirmed his death said he passed on Saturday morning in Switzerland after a brief illness.
He won a Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work and was the first black African to head the United Nations, serving two terms from 1997 to 2006.
He was appointed as the Secretary-General on December 13, 1996 by the Security Council, and later confirmed by the General Assembly, making him the first office holder to be elected from the UN staff itself.
He joined the UN in 1962.
He was re-elected for a second term in 2001.
As the Secretary-General, late Annan reformed the UN bureaucracy; worked to combat HIV, especially in Africa.
He also launched the UN Global Compact.
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Annan was criticised for not expanding the Security Council and faced calls for resignation after an investigation into the Oil-for-Food Programme.
After leaving the UN, he founded the Kofi Annan Foundation in 2007.
He later served as the UN special envoy for Syria, leading efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.
Born in Kumasi, Ghana, Annan went on to study Economics at Macalester College, International Relations from the Graduate Institute Geneva and management at MIT.
Annan joined the UN in 1962, working for the World Health Organisation’s Geneva office.
He went on to work in several capacities at the UN Headquarters including serving as the Under-Secretary-General for peacekeeping between March 1992 and December 1996.
