Kiyotaka Akasaka

Kiyotaka Akasaka joined the United Nations in 2007 when he was appointed as Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information. In May 2008, the Secretary-General appointed Mr. Akasaka as Coordinator of questions relating to multilingualism throughout the UN Secretariat.  These functions are in addition to his current responsibilities as head of the Department of Public Information (DPI).

Prior to his current post, Mr. Akasaka held the position of Deputy Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) from August 2003 to March 2007. He was Japan’s Ambassador to the UN from 2000 to 2001 and served as a bureau member for the preparation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in Johannesburg in 2002. 

In 1997, Mr. Akasaka was appointed the Deputy Director-General of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Multilateral Cooperation Department, in which capacity he served as one of his country’s senior negotiators in the Kyoto Conference on Climate Change. From 1993 to 1997, he served as an official with the World Health Organization (WHO) and from 1988 to 1991 he was a member of the Secretariat of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the precursor of the World Trade Organisation. 

Mr. Akasaka is the co-author of several books, including The GATT and the Uruguay Round Negotiations and The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, and has also written many articles on trade, the environment and sustainable development. 

Kiyotaka Akasaka is a national of Japan. In addition to Japanese, he speaks English and French.