Bahamian Elected Vice Chair of the United Nations Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions

11th December, 2023. Bahamian National, Ambassador Sharon Brennen-Haylock, was recently elected as Vice Chair of the United Nations’ (UN) Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), marking the first time a woman from the Caribbean has served in this capacity.  The Advisory Committee is an expert oversight Committee of the UN General Assembly, comprising twenty-one Members elected by the General Assembly for three years, based on broad geographical representation.

The ACABQ examines and reports to the General Assembly on the UN’s regular and peacekeeping budgets, the administrative budgets of the Specialised Agencies of the UN, and auditors’ reports on the accounts of the UN and its Specialised Agencies. The Committee also advises the General Assembly on a range of other administrative and financial matters.

Ambassador Brennen-Haylock joined the Committee in January 2022.  She is one of many Bahamian nationals who are distinguishing themselves at a high level in the international arena such as Ms Marion Bethel who serves as an expert on the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and is also the Rapporteur of the Committee, Ms Gaynel Curry who is a member of the UN Permanent Forum of People of African Descent, Ms Jewel Major who is a member of the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council, Dr. Adelle Thomas who is a Vice Chair of Working Group II for the Seventh Assessment Cycle of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Dr. Donald Cooper who holds a senior level post at the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Additional information on the ACABQ can be found at www.un.org/ga/acabq/.