Former minister Moreira da Silva promises to be ″fully focused″ on new UN position

Former PSD leadership candidate Jorge Moreira da Silva assured, this Thursday, that in the coming years he will be “fully focused” on the United Nations post to which he was appointed.

“It is with joy and a sense of responsibility that I welcome the decision announced today by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to appoint me, following an international public competition, Executive Director of UNOPS (UN Agency for Infrastructure and Project Management) and Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations (Under Secretary-General)”, said the former vice-president of the PSD, in a statement.

According to Moreira da Silva, it was “a competitive process”, to which he competed individually. “In the coming years, I will be fully focused on this mission of leading, on the ground, the construction and management of essential infrastructure for sustainable development, security and peace, and the fight against inequalities and climate change”, he assured.

In April last year, the former PSD leader announced his resignation as Director of Development Cooperation at the OECD, a position he had held since 2016, to run for PSD leadership, a position he ran for and lost to Luís Montenegro , at the end of May.

Jorge Moreira da Silva is a visiting professor at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), visiting professor at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris (Sciences Po) and Senior Advisor of the North American NGO Fourth Sector Group. He is also president of the Platform for Sustainable Growth (PCS) think-tank, which he founded in 2011.

The announcement of the name of Jorge Moreira da Silva, who will replace the Danish Jens Wandel, was announced by the UN secretary general, António Guterres.

Before joining the OECD, Moreira da Silva, who has a degree in Electrotechnical Engineering (Energy area), was Minister of the Environment, Spatial Planning and Energy between 2013 and 2015 and, between 2003 and 2005, he was Secretary of State for Science and Higher Education and Secretary of State for the Environment and Spatial Planning, as well as Member of Parliament and European Deputy.

UNOPS is an operational body of the United Nations, whose objective is to help different partners to implement humanitarian aid, development and peacebuilding projects, in the most complex contexts of the world, through sustainable practices.