Joint Liaison Office in
Naypyidaw,
Myanmar, 2013
Career in the UK Lowcock joined the then
Overseas Development Administration in 1985. He was the private secretary to
Minister for Overseas Development Baroness Chalker of Wallasey from 1992 to 1994, the deputy head and head of the
Department for International Development Regional Office for Central Africa from 1994 to 1997, the head of European Union Department from 1997 to 1999, the head of the Regional Office for East Africa, the director of finance and corporate performance from 2001 to 2003, the director general of corporate performance and knowledge sharing from 2003 to 2006, the director general of policy and international from 2006 to 2008, the director general of country programmes from 2008 to 2011. Lowcock was appointed
Permanent Secretary of the
Department for International Development on 9 June 2011. He oversaw the department during the period in which the UK increased its aid budget to 0.7% of
Gross Domestic Product. World leaders first pledged to meet the 0.7% target 35 years ago in a 1970 General Assembly Resolution.
Mark Andrew Green meeting Lowcock in 2019
Career with the UN As the under-secretary-general and emergency relief coordinator (USG/ERC), he was responsible for the oversight of all emergencies requiring United Nations humanitarian assistance. He also acted as the central focal point for governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental relief activities. The ERC also leads the
Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), a unique inter-agency forum for coordination, policy development and decision-making involving the key United Nations and non-United Nations humanitarian partners. In a country affected by a disaster or conflict, the ERC may appoint a humanitarian coordinator (HC) to ensure response efforts are well organized. The HC works with government, international organizations, non-governmental organizations and affected communities From 2019, Lowcock was a member of the
World Economic Forum High-Level Group on Humanitarian Investing, co-chaired by
Børge Brende,
Kristalina Georgieva and
Peter Maurer. In his role as the UN's humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock coordinated the COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Response Plan (GHRP). The GHRP was the international community's primary fundraising vehicle to respond to the humanitarian impacts of the virus in
low- and
middle-income countries and support their efforts to fight it. Nearly 250 million acutely vulnerable people across 63 countries were covered by the updated GHRP with needs totaling $10.3 billion. Activity funded by the GHRP included the delivery of laboratory equipment to test for the virus, and treat those infected, the installation of handwashing stations in camps and settlements, public health information campaigns on how to prevent community transmission, the provision of
personal protective equipment (PPE) for front-line medical workers, training for support services around sexual violence and intimate partner violence, the delivery of food and nutrition programmes, and the creation of airbridges across Africa, Asia and Latin America for the movement of humanitarian workers and supplies. == Publishing career ==