New Director General of the ICEIDA appointed

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Ossur Skarphedinsson, has appointed Mr. Engilbert Gudmundsson to the position of Director General for the Icelandic International Development Agency (ICEIDA).

Mr. Gudmundsson (b. 1948) holds a M.Sc. degree in economics from Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. He also pursued development studies at the University of East Anglia, England, and completed an Executive Development Program for World Bank managers at the Harvard Business School, USA.

Mr. Gudmundsson brings a wealth of experience on development issues gained from more than 25 years working for multilateral and bilateral agencies. He worked as a Management Advisor for the Danish Government (DANIDA) in Tanzania between 1985 and 1990. He joined the Nordic Development Fund (NDF) in 1991 as a Project Manager, and was subsequently promoted to the position of Vice President of NDF in 1992. Mr. Gudmundsson worked at the World Bank between 1998 and 2010, first as a Partnership Coordinator for Multilateral Financial Institutions and later as the Bank´s Country Manager in Sierra Leone between 2006 and 2010. He joins ICEIDA from the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Sierra Leone (UNIPSIL), where he has worked for the past months as Chief of the Democratic Institutions Section.

Mr. Gudmundsson takes up his position on March 1, 2011. He replaces Mr. Sighvatur Bjorgvinsson, who has resigned as of January 1, 2011. Ms. Thordis Sigurdardottir,  Deputy Director General, will be appointed acting Director General during this two month period.