The Diplomat
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Spaniard Damián Cardona Onses to the position of director of the United Nations Information Centre in Canberra, Australia.
A field office of the United Nations Department of Global Communications, the United Nations Information Centre in Canberra provides services to Australia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
Cardona, who assumed his duties on April 20, has more than 26 years of experience in strategic communications, crisis communications, outreach and campaigns within the United Nations system, the UN said in a press release.
Before his appointment to Canberra, he served as United Nations Information Centre Director in Dakar, Senegal (covering French-speaking Africa) and in Bogota (covering Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela). In 2021, he was seconded to the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia as Chief of Strategic Communications and Public Information.
Having served in peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mali and Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mr. Cardona was also Chief of Media Relations and Spokesperson for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and Special Adviser to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General.
Before joining the United Nations, Mr. Cardona was based in Amman, Jordan, from 1998 to 2002 as Regional Middle East Communications Delegate for the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC). He had been the Director of International Relations for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)-sponsored Universal Forum of Cultures Barcelona 2004.
Cardona holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Barcelona and master’s degree on international relations from the Institut d’Études Politiques in Grenoble, France. He is fluent in English, French, Spanish and Catalan, and has a good working knowledge of Haitian Creole, Italian and Portuguese. Cardona is married and has three children.
