Mangalorean named head of Amnesty International

Mangalore Today

London, Dec.21: Forty-eight-year-old Indian anti-poverty campaigner Salil Shetty has been appointed the next Secretary General of Amnesty International, the human rights organisation announced in London Monday.

Shetty, 48, from Bangalore, is a former director of the UN’s Millennium Campaign and chief executive of ActionAid, an international anti-poverty organisation.

He is the first Indian national to head Amnesty in its 50-year-history and will take up his post in June, 2010 to succeed Irene Khan, who steps down after eights years.

Amnesty described Shetty as ’absolutely the right person’ to take the organization ’into the next stage of our work’.

Shetty holds a Masters degree of Science in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics (LSE) and a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad.

 

 

Salil Shetty joined the United Nations in October 2003 as Director of the Millennium Campaign from ActionAid - a leading international development NGO firmly committed to poverty eradication; here he was most recently Chief Executive.

Salil Shetty joined the United Nations in October 2003 as Director of the Millennium Campaign from ActionAid - a leading international development NGO firmly committed to poverty eradication; here he was most recently Chief Executive. He joined ActionAid in 1985 and played a leading role in more than 30 programmes in Africa, Asia and across other regions, and made an exceptional contribution to its growth and development, playing a key role in reorienting the organization’s focus on advocacy at the grassroots and policy-making levels. In 2003, ActionAid reached 9 million of the world’s poor, with support from 2,000 civil society partners worldwide.

Prior to his work there, Mr. Shetty worked in the private sector. Mr. Shetty is a Governor of the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex, Council Member of the Overseas Development Institute, London, a Member of the Advisory Council of the American-Indian Foundation, New York and Trustee of the Board of Italy’s largest secular international development NGO Azione Aiuto. An Indian National, Mr.Shetty earned a distinction in a Masters of Science in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics and a Masters in Business Administration from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad.

He commenced his studies in Advanced Accountancy and Cost Accounting at Bangalore University. The Millennium Campaign informs, inspires and encourages people’s involvement and action in the realization of the Millennium Declaration and Development Goals. An initiative of the United Nations, the Campaign supports citizens’ efforts to hold their government to account for the achievement of the Millennium Goals. February 2005