Ghana's Francis Vib-Sanziri Heads UN Disengagement Observer Force

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today announced the appointment of Major General Francis Vib-Sanziri of Ghana as the Head of Mission and Force Commander of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF).

Major General Vib-Sanziri succeeds Major General Jai Shanker Menon of India, who completed his assignment on 30 September, and to whom the Secretary-General is grateful to for his dedicated leadership of the Mission.

Since joining the Ghanaian Armed Forces in 1985, the new Force Commander has had a distinguished military career at national and international levels. Having served as Director-General of the International Peace Support Operations at the General Headquarters of the Armed Forces since April 2017, he had also served as Assistant Director, Ghana Army Operations (1996-1998), Deputy Head of the Ghana Military Academy (2002-2004), Commanding Officer of an Infantry Battalion (2004-2009), Director for International Peacekeeping Support Operations in 2009 and Army Secretary at the Army Headquarters (2010-2011). In 2014, he was appointed Director-General for Joint Operations, General Headquarters. He served as Director-General of the National Disaster Management Organization from 2015 to 2017.

Major General Vib-Sanziri’s extensive peacekeeping experience includes deployments to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in 1988 and 1991, United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) in 1993 and 1994 and the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) in 2007. He also served with the Economic Community of West Africa States Monitoring Group in Liberia in 1990, in Sierra Leone, in 1999 and 2000, and, subsequently, with the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL). From 2011 to 2014, he served as a strategic military planner in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations at the United Nations.

Major General Vib-Sanziri holds a master’s degree in military art and science from the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, in the United States, a post-graduate certificate in public administration from the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration and a Bachelor of Arts degree in geography and rural resource development from the University of Ghana. He is a graduate of the Nigerian Armed Forces Command and General Staff College, Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College and the United States Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Born in 1957, he is married and has two daughters.