Biography
Amre Mahmoud Moussa was the 6th Secretary- General of the
Arab League from 2001 to 2011. Before that he was the 52nd
Egyptian Foreign Minister holding the position from 1991 until
2001. After leaving his post, he was elected as Secretary General
of the Arab League. He held this position from 2001 till 2011, he
then ran for president of Egypt in the first democratic elections
following the Arab Revolutions for change as an independent
candidate with a vision to reform Egypt's ailing bureaucratic and
economic infrastructure. Afterwards, Moussa was elected as a
member of the Egyptian Constitutional assembly assigned to
write the country's new constitution.
Mr. Moussa was born in Cairo on October 3rd, 1936. He
graduated from the faculty of law, Cairo University in 1957, and
first joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt in 1958.
Between 1958 and 1972 he worked in several Egyptian missions
including Egypt's embassy in Switzerland and the Egyptian
mission to the United Nations.
From 1974 to 1977 he became one of the assistants and advisors
to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt. He served as the
director of the department of international organizations in the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs for two terms from (1977-1981) and
from (1986-1989). He served as Deputy Permanent
Representative of Egypt to the United Nations in New York from
1981 to 1983; Egyptian Ambassador to India from 1983 to 1986;
Permanent Representative of Egypt to the United Nations from
1990-1991. He was then sworn in as Egypt's Minister of Foreign
Affairs in 1991 and continued to hold this position till 2001 when
he was unanimously voted as the Secretary General of the
League of Arab States where he served two terms till 2011. In
2003 he was chosen as a member of the United Nation's High
Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change for international
peace and security. Mr. Moussa decided to run for presidency in
Egypt's first democratic elections in 2011 with a strong
economic and administrative reform program. The Muslim
brotherhood's candidate was elected president but Moussa
emerged as a liberal national leader with strong popularity and
was elected in 2012 as a member of the Egyptian Constitutional
Assembly drafting the country's new constitution.
Secretary General Moussa was honored and awarded many
decorations by several countries and organizations. Among the
awards he has received are the Grand Cordon of the Nile from
Egypt (May 2001), First Class Order of the Two Niles from
Sudan (2001), Honorary Doctorate Degree of Humane Letters,
the Lebanese American University of Beirut (2010). He also
received awards and decorations from Ecuador, Brazil, Qatar,
Jordan, Argentina and the German Federation.
In 2009, he signed a memorandum of understanding with the
Holy See and met with Pope Benedict XVI in order to strengthen
joint projects and to promote peace and dialogue on a cultural
and political level. On June 13th 2010, Moussa visited Gaza in a
move to pressure Israel to lift its economic blockade over
Hamas-Ruled Gaza and declared that the Arab League would go
to the UN Security Council to demand the blockade be lifted. In
2011 Moussa signed Al-Azhar Declaration together with the
Sheikh of Al- Azhar Mosque and Pope Shenuda III of Egypt and
several other Egyptian personalities guaranteeing basic
freedoms and rights of Egyptians to be the basis of the new
Constitustion.
He married Laila Badawy in 1968. He has two children, Hania and
Hazem, as well as two grandchildren, Mohamed and Amina.