The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appointed three new special representatives to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire respectively, the UN announced a short while ago.

Alan Doss of Britain, currently UN Special Representative to Liberia, is to take up the same post in DRC, succeeding William Swing of the United States. Mr. Swing once served as United States Ambassador to Liberia.

Amb. Alan Doss has been SRSG in Liberia since 15 August 2005. Until his appointment to Liberia, Mr. Doss had been the principle deputy chief of the UN peacekeeping mission in Cote d'Ivoire (ONUCI).

Before that, he was Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General with the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL).

Amb. Alan Doss is to be replaced at UNMIL by Ellen Loj, Denmark's former UN Ambassador and an ex-chair of the UN Security Council's sanctions committee on Liberia.

Also appointed, Mr. Ban named Choi Young-Jin, a former South Korean Ambassador to the UN, as his new special envoy to Cote d'Ivoire, a post left vacant since February after the departure of incumbent Pierre Schori of Sweden.