Hennadiy Udovenko

Infobox Politician
name = Hennadiy Udovenko
_uk. Геннадій Удовенко
pre-name =
post-name =


imagesize = 200px
office = 2^nd Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
term_start = August 5, 1994
term_end = April 17, 1998
predecessor = Anatoliy Zlenko
successor = Borys Tarasyuk
office2 = President of the United Nations General Assembly
term_start2 = 1997
term_end2 = 1998
predecessor2 = Razali Ismail
successor2 = Didier Opertti
birth_date = birth date and age|1931|6|22
birth_place = flagicon|USSR Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
party = People's Movement of Ukraine (former Chairman)
spouse = Dina Boutenko
religion =

Hennadiy Yosypovych Udovenko ( _uk. Геннадій Йосипович Удовенко; born June 22, 1931) is a Ukrainian politician and diplomat. He has served as Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, has been the 52^nd President of the United Nations General Assembly (1997-1998) and Member of Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (1998-2007). He is from Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. He has studied international relations at the Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University, having graduated in 1954. He also did graduate studies in agricultural economics at the Ukrainian Research and Development Institute for Agricultural Economy and Organization from 1956 to 1959.

Early career

He started his career in 1952 as secretary to the Minister and secretary to the Governing Board of the Ministry of the building materials industry of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. From 1955 to 1958, he was head of the collective farm in the Domantivka village of the Skvyra district of Kyiv region.

Diplomatic career

Hennadiy Udovenko entered diplomatic service in 1959 as 1^st secretary, counsellor at the Department of International Economic organizations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1965-71, he worked at the United Nations Office at Geneva. In 1971-77, he was successively head of the personnel department and head of the International economic organizations department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the UkrSSR.

From 1977 to 1980, he was Director of the Interpretation and Meetings Division at the Department of Conference Services of the United Nations office in New York.

In 1980-1985, he was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and was assigned the rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in January 1985.

From February 1985 to March 1992, he was Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations and Vice-Chairman of the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid. 1989-1991 – Vice-President of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. At the same time, in 1991-1992, he was Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine. In 1992-1994, he served as Ambassador of Ukraine to the Polish Republic.

From 1994 until 1998, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and member of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. In September 1997, he was elected President of the 52^nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly for one year, continuing as President of the 10^th emergency special and 20^th special sessions of the UN GA. [ [http://who-is-who.com.ua/bookmaket/partii/3/32.html Удовенко Геннадій Йосипович - Хто є хто: влада, політика, громадська діяльність 2006] ]

Political activities

On May 14, 1999, Udovenko was elected Chairman of the People's Movement of Ukraine (Narodnyi Rukh Ukrainy) political party, having served as acting chairman since the end of March 1999, when the previous Chairman of Rukh, Vyacheslav Chornovil, had died in a car accident. He was reelected in 2001 and served as Chairman of the party until May 3, 2003, having been succeeded by Borys Tarasyuk who had earlier also succeeded him as Ukraine's Foreign Minister. [ [http://nru.org.ua/about/history Народний Рух України :: Історична довідка] ]

As member of Rukh, he was elected to Verkhovna Rada, the Parliament of Ukraine, in 1998. In 2002, he again became Member of Parliament as part of the electoral list of Our Ukraine bloc, which had been created with active cooperation on the side of Udovenko. During the 3^rd and 4^th convocations of the Verkhovna Rada, he was Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, National Minorities, and Inter-ethnic Relations.

In the 2006 parliamentary elections, he was again part of Our Ukraine list, but declined laying down his parliamentary mandate [ [http://www.rada.gov.ua/LIBRARY/monitor/reg_07/reg_07_40.html Огляд реґіональної преси] ] [ [http://www.gazeta.lviv.ua/articles/2007/06/04/23822/ Львівська Газета | Наступний указ Президента про дострокові вибори буде 3 серпня] ] during the political crisis in the spring of 2007, when more than 150 MPs from Our Ukraine and Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc resigned from the parliament, giving the President the legal grounds for dissolving Verkhovna Rada. Aged 76, Udovenko didn't take part in the new elections.

References