KAREN KONING ABUZAYD A brief look

Karen Koning AbuZayd, a Canfield native, gave a one-hour presentation Saturday at the Ursuline Center in Canfield on her longtime work with the United Nations on behalf of millions of displaced refugees, as well as on the deteriorating conditions and civil war in Syria. Some key highlights:

Koning AbuZayd began her career in 1981 in Sudan, where she assisted refugees from Uganda, Chad and Ethiopia/Eritrean.

Before joining the U.N.’s Relief and Works Agency, she worked 19 years for the Office of the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Refugees.

In 1989, she moved to Namibia, where she was senior program coordinator for the return of apartheid-era refugees. A year later, Koning AbuZayd transferred to Sierra Leone to head the UNHCR’s Freetown office and spearheaded an effort to settle 100,000 Liberians in 600 villages along the border.

From 1991 to 1993, she directed the South African repatriation and the Kenya-Somalia operations from the UNHCR’s Geneva headquarters before moving to Sarajevo to supervise airlift, convoy and protection activities.

In August 2000, Koning AbuZayd was appointed the UNRWA’s assistant secretary-general and deputy commissioner general.

Since retiring five years ago, she has joined several Middle East and refugee-related boards and has given presentations in the U.S., Africa, Europe and the Middle East.

Koning AbuZayd also was named Distinguished Visiting Professor at American University in Cairo, as well as Distinguished Lecturer at Bibliotheca Alexandrina, a library and cultural center in Alexandria, Egypt.

Other accolades include having received the Spanish UN Association/Catalonia Peace Prize in 2010 and the Austria Golden Medal with Star for Service to the Austrian Republic in 2011.

Source: The Ursuline Center