With about 1,200 staff at United Nations Headquarters in New York and 2,200 worldwide, including the conference management staff at the United Nations Offices at Geneva, Vienna and Nairobi, the Department for General Assembly and Conference Management (DGACM) is the largest in the United Nations Secretariat. Those who work in the Department are committee secretaries and research clerks, meeting planners and protocol officers, translators and verbatim reporters, interpreters and editors, graphic designers and printers, conference officers and administrators, and more.

Their work is central to the mandate and functioning of the United Nations as an international forum within which representatives of Member States and other groups meet to deliberate on the major questions facing the world today and to propose answers to those questions. Their mission is to enhance dialogue and cooperation among Member States and, by doing so, to contribute to the realization of the objectives of the United Nations and of the forward-looking Millennium Development Goals adopted by the General Assembly.

The Department’s success depends on the professionalism, dedication, teamwork, and sometimes the personal sacrifice of its staff members. They come from all corners to the world, with diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. However, as international civil servants – as they are called – they share one defining character: they are motivated by the noble purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations. Often working behind the scenes, their staff make a quiet but essential contribution to the work of the United Nations.