Gamani Corea (1925- ) served as UNCTAD’s third secretary-general (1974-84). Earlier he served as ambassador of Sri Lanka, deputy governor of the Central Bank and permanent secretary of the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs, and various positions in the Bank of Ceylon. His other UN affiliations have included being secretary-general of several UN conferences and member or chairman of several UN panels of eminent persons, including the UN Committee on Development Planning, the UN Cocoa Conference, the Expert Group on Development and Environment, and the ECAFE Expert Group on Regional Performance Evaluation. He was born in Sri Lanka and was educated there at the Royal College and the University of Ceylon and at Cambridge and Oxford Universities. He is Chancellor of the Open University of Sri Lanka, senior adviser to the Sri Lanka Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and president of the Association of Former International Civil Servants in Sri Lanka.

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