Sir Derek Plumbly

Sir Derek Plumbly KCMG (born 15 May 1948) is a British diplomat who has served throughout the Arab world. From 2012-2014, he served as the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon.

Plumbly was born in New Forest and attended Brockenhurst Grammar School. He then studied politics and economics at Magdalen College, Oxford. Wanting to see the world after schooling, Plumbly signed up for the Voluntary Service Overseas, and taught for a year and a half in Sukur, a town in Pakistan's Sindh province.

Plumbly went on to study Arabic, first in Shemlan, Lebanon, where he lived with a family for a year and a half, and then at the University of Jordan with the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war.

Plumbly has served in a variety of postings around the Middle East, including Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Ambassador to the Arab Republic of Egypt. In February 2008 he was appointed by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to head the Assessment and Evaluation Commission, charged with monitoring the implementation of Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement. In 2011, he was appointed as the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon (UNSCOL), he served in this position from 2012-2014.

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