By the Alumni Relations Office

Anne Keah is the Head of the Governance Service and the Secretary of the Executive Committee at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva, Switzerland. In this role, she oversees the UNHCR’s engagement with the Member States of the Executive Committee and ensures the compliance for obligatory reporting to the United Nations General Assembly.

Anne holds a B.A. and M.A. in International Relations and graduated top of the International Relations class at undergraduate. While at USIU-Africa, Anne participated in the 55th Annual Conference on United States Affairs at the West Point Military Academy in New York in November 2003. She also served as the Executive Secretary of the Students Affairs Council in the same year.

She joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kenya in 2007, as Third Secretary, where she graduated top of the class at the Foreign Service Institute. She rose through the ranks to the post of First Counsellor and specialized in multilateral diplomacy. Anne has served two tours of duty at the Permanent Mission of Kenya to the United Nations Office in Geneva between 2008 and 2013 and later between 2018 and 2021. Anne has participated in numerous multilateral engagements on behalf of Kenya.

In March 2021, she won the UNITAR Best Female Negotiator Award for the successful facilitation and adoption of the UNHCR multi-year work plan. In 2020, Anne was the Rapporteur of the UNHCR Executive Committee and supported Kenya’s Chairmanship of the Meeting of States Parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, under the leadership of Kenya’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva. In 2018, Anne represented the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the National Technical Committee on the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework and was part of the delegation that negotiated Kenya’s position in the Formal Consultations for the Global Compact on Refugees. Anne enjoys reading, traveling and is big on family.