KATHMANDU: Axel Plathe of Germany has been appointed the new Head of the UNESCO Office in Kathmandu and UNESCO Representative to Nepal. He succeeds Colin Kaiser of Canada.

A press release issued on Monday states that Axel Plathe, a trained librarian, comes to the UNESCO Office in Kathmandu from the Organisation’s Headquarters in Paris, where he headed the Executive Office of the Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information.

With a longstanding career in UNESCO, mainly in the area of communication and information for development, Plathe provided technical expertise and assistance to member states in the formulation of national information policies, establishment of information and knowledge management strategies, and the planning and implementation of related projects, including capacity building. He also played a key role in coordinating UNESCO’s participation in the two phases of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS; Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005).

Before joining UNESCO, Plathe worked as a social worker and educator and as librarian at the State and University Library in Darmstadt, Germany. He holds an MA in German Studies and a PhD in Comparative Literature from Albert Ludwigs Universität, Freiburg, Germany, and a postgraduate degree in Library Studies and Management from the Bibliotheksschule Frankfurt/Main.