William L. Swing


William Lacy Swing. He is a diplomat and former United States Ambassador, and United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Under Secretary General. He was the Director General of the International Organization for Migration until António Vitorino's appointment in 2018.

Early life and education

Swing was born on September 11, 1934, in Lexington, North Carolina. In 1956 he graduated from Catawba College in North Carolina. Four years later he received a Master of Divinity from Yale University. He did post-graduate studies at the University of Tübingen in Germany. He was a Fellow at Harvard University from 1976 to 1977.
He holds an honorary degree from Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations and Hofstra University, and is an Honorary Fellow of Harris Manchester College, Oxford.
He speaks French, German, Afrikaans, and Creole.

Ambassadorial posts

Western Sahara

Swing served as UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General to Western Sahara from 2001–2003. He was Chief of Mission for the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Swing then led the MONUSCO . He was appointed as Special Representative of the Secretary General to the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with the rank of Under Secretary General. MONUC, now known as MONUSCO, is the UN's largest peace operation. The Mission is engaged in the peace process and providing security support to the country as it seeks to end armed conflict in the war torn eastern part of the Congo.

International Organization for Migration

In June 2008 Swing was elected Director General of the International Organization for Migration. In early 2017, UN Secretary-General António Guterres appointed him to the 9-member High-Level Task Force to Improve the United Nations Approach for Preventing and Addressing Sexual Abuse.
Swings term as Director General will end in September 2018. He will be succeeded by Portuguese politician Antonio Vitorino on October 1.

Awards

He is a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy. In 2012, he received the American Foreign Service Association's Award for Lifetime Contributions to American Diplomacy.
In 2019, he was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, by the government of Japan.