Officers of the Human Rights Council's Seventeenth Cycle (2023)

Maira Mariela Macdonal Alvarez has served as the Permanent Representative of the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the United Nations Office at Geneva since March 2021. Before her appointment to Geneva, Ms. Macdonal Alvarez served as an advisor in the office of the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Plurinational State of Bolivia in 2020, after serving as Chief of Cabinet of the Minister in 2019. In 2018 and 2019, she served as First Secretary at the Permanent Mission of the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the United Nations in New York, after being a Second Secretary there from 2016 to 2018, and a civil assistant there from 2014 to 2016. Ms. Macdonal Alvarez worked in the office of the Vice-President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia from 2012 to 2014, where she was first in charge of press and communication, then public relations.
Full bio

Muhammadou M.O. Kah has served as the Permanent Representative of the Gambia to the United Nations Office at Geneva since February 2021. Before this, Mr. Kah held teaching and leadership positions in the United States, Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. He has served as the founding Chairman of Zenith Bank, the Gambia; Chairman of the Board of Directors of Africa Consulting and Trading Group in Dakar, Senegal; and founder and Chairman of Khamsys Technologies Ltd. He served as Vice-President of Academic Affairs and Provost and Professor of information technology and computing at the American University of Nigeria (2017-2020), and third Vice-Chancelor of the University of the Gambia from 2009 to 2015. He also served as Founding Dean and Professor of information technology and communications of the School of Information Technology and Engineering, and Vice-Rector for Technology and Innovation, ADA University, Azerbaijan. He was the Founding Dean of the School of Information Technology and Communications at the American University of Nigeria. Mr. Kah also served as a Department Chairman and Information Systems at the American University of Sharjah, School of Business and Management, United Arab Emirates.
Full bio

Marc Bichler has served as the Permanent Representative of Luxembourg to the United Nations Office at Geneva since June 2021. Before his appointment to Geneva, Mr. Bichler served for five years as Luxembourg’s travelling Ambassador for human rights, whose duties included presiding over the Government’s inter-ministerial committee for human rights, and being associated with Luxembourg’s candidature as a Member State of the Human Rights Council for 2022-2024. He was Luxembourg’s travelling Ambassador for climate change from 2014 to 2016. From November 2012 to April 2014, he served as the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Capital Development Fund in New York.
Full bio

Asim Ahmed has served as the Permanent Representative of Maldives to the United Nations Office at Geneva since September 2020. Before his appointment to Geneva, Mr. Ahmed served as Ambassador-at-large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2019 to 2020, representing Maldives in meetings of the United Nations General Assembly in New York and the Human Rights Council in Geneva. He began his career in public service at the former Ministry of Planning and National Development of Maldives in 1985, where he became Director for Strategic Planning. From 2011 to 2013, Mr. Ahmed served as the Minister of Education of Maldives. He was appointed periodically as the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Acting Minister of Tourism during this period.
Full bio