New Permanent Representative of Timor-Leste Presents Credentials to the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva  

Maria de Lurdes Martins de Sousa Bessa, the new Permanent Representative of Timor-Leste to the United Nations Office at Geneva, today presented her credentials to Tatiana Valovaya, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva

Prior to her appointment to Geneva, Ms. Bessa had been serving as a personal advisor to the President of Timor-Leste since November 2018. She was Vice Minister of Education from September 2017 to June 2018. She served as a Member of the National Parliament from 2012 to 2017, during which she was Chair of the Democratic Party in Parliament and a member of the Committee B on foreign affairs, defense and security.

Ms. Bessa worked as a political assistant at the Embassy of the United States in Dili, Timor-Leste from 2004 to 2012, and as an assistant in the Cooperation Department of the Embassy of Portugal in Dili from 2001 to 2003. She was a programme manager at USAID in Dili from 1999 to 2000. She was a member of the Organizing Committee of the Symposia on Timor-Leste of the Porto University in Portugal from 1990 to 1999.

Ms. Bessa has a bachelor’s degree in modern languages and literature from the Faculty of Letters, Porto University, Portugal (1998). She was born in August 1973 in Maubara, Liquica, Timor-Leste and is married.

CR21.039E