title: Kofi Annan
text: Kofi Atta Annan (8 April 1938 – 18 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat. He served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations. He did this from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006. Annan and the United Nations were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. They were awarded the prize "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world".
  
  Early life
  Annan was born in Kumasi, Ghana, to an elite family. His parents, Henry Reginald and Madam Rose Eshun are from the two major ethnic groups that make up the Akan – one of the groups of indigenous people of Ghana.
  
  His father was half Asante and half Fante; his mother was Fante. The Asante were gold merchants while the Fante tribe were the middlemen in the gold trade between the Asante and the British.
  
  Annan, whose first name means "born on a Friday", also had a twin sister, who died in 1991 from a still yet unknown disease. In Ghanaian culture, twins are considered special and are adored.
  
  Annan probably got his first lessons in politics and diplomacy early on from his family. Both of Annan's grandfathers and his uncle were tribal chiefs. Upon his retirement, Annan's father, who worked as an export manager for the cocoa exporter Lever Brothers, was elected governor of Ghana's Asante province.
  
  Education
  In 1954, Annan attended Mfantsipim School, an Methodist boarding school in central Ghana. The Secretary-General says that the school taught him "that suffering anywhere concerns people everywhere".
  
  Annan went to Macalaster College in St. Paul, Minnesota and graduating in 1961. He was a Sloan Fellow at MIT in 1971–72, getting a master's degree in management.
  
  His work at the United Nations
  Annan became Secretary-General of the United Nations in January 1997, succeeding Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt. Annan was a U.N. veteran who took his first job with the organization in 1962 and worked his way up through various posts including deputy director to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (1980–83) and head of the U.N.'s peacekeeping efforts (1995–96). Annan was the first Secretary-General chosen from the ranks of the U.N.'s staff. He is also the first black man to hold the post and the second African (after Boutros-Ghali). His second term began in 2002 and ran through the end of 2006.
  
  In 2001 he and the United Nations were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world".
  
  Personal life
  Annan was married to Nane Annan, a lawyer and artist from Sweden.
  
  Death
  Annan died on 18 August 2018 in Bern, Switzerland after a short-illness, aged 80.
  
  Related pages
  List of African scientists by country
  
  References
  
  1938 births
  2018 deaths
  Disease-related deaths in Switzerland
  Ghanaian politicians
  Ghanaian diplomats
  Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George
  Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
  Recipients of the Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria