Saad Houry
Deputy Executive Director, UNICEF
Mr. Houry was appointed UNICEF Deputy Executive Director in January 2008. Mr. Houry joined UNICEF in June 1978 as Assistant Programme Officer in the Middle East and North Africa Regional Office in Beirut, Lebanon. From 1981 to 1983, he served as Resident Programme Officer in Aden, Yemen. Mr. Houry was later transferred to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia where he served as Adviser to the Arab Gulf Programme for the United Nations Development Programme and as head of their Programme Division from 1983 to 1988. Mr. Houry returned to UNICEF as Regional Programme and Planning Officer in the West and Central Africa Regional Office in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire from 1988 to 1993. He then served on special assignments and program-related activities at UNICEF offices in Oman, Madagascar, Mozambique and New York from 1993 to 1996. From April 1996 to August 1998, Mr. Houry served as UNICEF Representative in Burkina Faso. From August 1998 until January 2001, Mr. Houry served as Deputy Regional Director in Amman, Jordan, when he was appointed Chief, Office of the Executive Director in UNICEF Headquarters, New York. In January 2003 he was appointed as Director of the Division of Policy and Planning.
Mr. Houry, a Canadian national, attended the American University of Beirut where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and Chemistry in 1972. He attended the University of London where he received a Master of Science degree in Neurobiology in 1974, and pursued research towards a Ph.D. in Neuropharmacology.
