A United Nations (UN) director, whose long-standing collaboration with De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) has seen the institution take an important lead in global sustainability, has been awarded an honorary degree.
Maher Naser, who has worked for the UN for 37 years, is the Director of the Outreach Division in the United Nations department of Global Communications and Commissioner General of the UN for Expo 2025 which will be in Osaka, Japan.
He is a champion of the primacy of principles on which the UN was created and is a global advocate for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
There are 17 SDGs and DMU was made a United Nations Academic Impact global hub for UN SDG 16, which promotes peace, justice and strong institutions. DMU is the only higher education institution in the UK to be a SDG hub.
On receiving his award, Maher said: “I feel humbled, honoured and proud. I would say to those graduating today, lean back on your university years. It is not just the degree that you obtained, but the relationships, the experiences, the new ways of thinking.
“Apply these in real life and it will do you good. Be brave, be principled and go on and conquer.”
Maher is a child of Palestinian refugees who grew up in the city of Ramallah in the West Bank where education was seen as an important investment to his family and the many other refugees who had settled there.
Maher receives his honorary degree on stage at Curve theatre
He studied at the first Palestinian university, Birzeit, when it was established in the early 70s, along with his sister and his father.
In his final years of study Maher supplemented his finances by working as a freelance translator from Arabic to English for a human rights organisation.
Maher saw a job advert for a role in communications with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in Gaza and it was in August 1987 that his 37-year career with the UN began.
In 1991, Maher left the UNRWA to join the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East Peace Conference in Madrid, co-chaired by US President Gorge Bush and Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev, where he worked as special assistant and press secretary to the head of the Palestinian negotiating team.
He then re-joined the UN in February 1992, based in Vienna. He has subsequently worked for the UN in Amman, New York, Cairo, New York and Dubai.
Maher has worked at the highest level at the UN, including as Acting Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications in 2012, 2014 and 2017 and as Commissioner-General of the UN at Expo 2020 in Dubai before taking up his current role.
Outside of his role at the UN, Maher is married to Jenny – who is originally from London and met Maher who was a volunteer teaching English in UNRWA schools in Gaza - and has three grown up children who all attended the degree ceremony to see their father honoured.
Maher addresses students and the audience at Curve
His passion to help others saw Maher become what he describes as ‘a reluctant runner’, motivating himself to train for the New York City Marathon in 2015 by raising funds to sponsor university scholarships for young women in Palestine. After completing three New York marathons, Maher has raised almost $70,000 to cover tuition fees for seven Palestinian women through the UNRWA.
A citation read out at the degree ceremony said: “It is due to his advocacy and longstanding engagement with DMU that the university embraced sustainability and became a UN global hub for one of the SDGs, which aim to transform the lives of millions by 2030. Throughout all of DMU’s time as a SDG hub Maher’s unwavering support, encouragement and advice has been invaluable.
“For his achievement in the field of human rights and as a global advocate of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, I am delighted to recommend that DMU confer Doctor of the University on Maher Nasser.”
Posted on Wednesday 11 September 2024