Announcement

Secretary-General appoints Jutta Hinkkanen of Finland as the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Mauritania

01 June 2026
The UN Resident Coordinator in Mauritania.
Caption: United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Jutta Hinkkanen of Finland as the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Mauritania.
Photo: © UN

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Jutta Hinkkanen of Finland as the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Mauritania, with the approval of the host Government. She takes up her post today, 1 June.

Ms. Hinkkanen brings more than 20 years of experience across the humanitarian, peace, and development sectors, including senior leadership roles in country operations in Africa and the Middle East, as well as at Headquarters. In Juba, she served as Head of the Integrated Office of the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General (DSRSG) and Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator within the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), where she fostered coherence across peace, humanitarian, and development efforts and strengthened system-wide planning and delivery. She also served as Officer-in-Charge for the DSRSG, providing strategic oversight of the Protection pillar. Earlier, as Head of Office for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Burundi, she championed humanitarian-development collaboration and strengthened humanitarian leadership and coordination. She has also served in Jordan, in the Office of the Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria crisis.  

At Headquarters, Ms. Hinkkanen served as Chief of Guidance, Learning and Reporting in OCHA's Pooled Funds Management Branch, where she led efforts to enhance the strategic use, impact, and accountability of OCHA-managed funds. She has also worked at OCHA as a desk officer for multiple contexts and as Special Assistant to the Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator and began her United Nations career with the World Food Programme in Ethiopia.

Prior to joining the United Nations, Ms. Hinkkanen served with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.

She holds Master's degrees from the University of Helsinki in Finland and the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris in France.