Margaret Joan Anstee

Vocation

Lifestyle

Notable

English diplomat, administrator and writer; Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. Dame Margaret Anstee joined the United Nations in 1952 and stayed for over 40 years, until 1993. During that time, she rose to the rank of Under-Secretary General in 1987. She held a variety of positions always working with poor countries in their humanitarian and economic development. Since leaving the UN in July 1993, Dame Margaret has been working as an independent consultant. She continues to work with other countries and to write about the needs of developing countries, particularly in South America. Her book "Orphan of the Cold War: the Inside Story of the Collapse of the Angolan Peace Process 1992-3" was published in the UK and the US in October 1996. A Portuguese translation was published in Portugal in April 1997. In the 1994 New Year's Honours List Queen Elizabeth II made her a Dame Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George. She has received a number of awards for her work. Born to a poor working family in rural Essex, she managed through hard work to graduate from Cambridge with honors and she subsequently entered the Foreign Office where she worked with the spy Donald MacLean, just before his defection with Guy Burgess. She married a diplomat and they moved to Singapore. When the marriage failed, she accepted a job with the United Nations in order to earn her travel fare back to England. She stayed for four decades. Link to Wikipedia biography