Leadership
The United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) provides strategic leadership, coordination, and capacity building support to Member States and to the members of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact, in support of their efforts to implement, in a comprehensive and balanced manner, the UN Counter-Terrorism Strategy and its review resolutions, as well as relevant Security Council resolutions.
The Under-Secretary-General for Counter-Terrorism, appointed by the UN Secretary-General, is the head of UN Office of Counter-Terrorism and Executive Director of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT). He is also a member of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Executive Committee, Senior Management Group, Chief Executive Board, Standing Principals Group and other fora of senior United Nations officials. Furthermore, he chairs the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact Task Force on behalf of the United Nations Secretary-General.
Mr. Vladimir Voronkov - Under-Secretary-General for Counter-Terrorism
(Russian Federation, Eastern European Group)
Mr. Vladimir Voronkov was appointed Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism on 21 June 2017, established by General Assembly resolution 71/291.
Mr. Voronkov brings to the position more than 30 years of experience within the Foreign Service of the Russian Federation, working primarily on United Nations affairs, with responsibilities ranging from public diplomacy and social and economic development issues to intergovernmental affairs.
Prior to his appointment, he was Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the International Organizations in Vienna. Under his leadership, the Permanent Mission launched several flagship projects with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) and developed successful collaborations with the UNODC Antiterrorist Branch. Mr. Voronkov also served on the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), during which time he led several delegations of the Russian Federation to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs and the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.
Prior to serving in Vienna, Mr. Voronkov was Director of the Department of European Cooperation (2008-2011), during which time he served as the Head of the Russian Delegation during the Russia-European Union negotiations on the visa-free regime (2010-2011). He started his career with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1989 and has served in various capacities, among them as Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna (2005-2008), Deputy Director of the Personnel Department (2002-2005) and Minister Counsellor and Deputy Chief of Mission of the Russian Embassy to Poland (2000-2002). Mr. Voronkov holds a PhD from Moscow State University. He has authored various scientific publications on international issues.
Ms. Oguljeren (Jerena) Niyazberdiyeva - Chief of the Office of the Under-Secretary-General
(Turkmenistan, Asia and the Pacific Group)
Ms. Niyazberdiyeva currently serves as the Chief of the Office of the Under-Secretary-General for Counter-Terrorism (OUSG). In her current function, Ms. Niyazberdiyeva provides strategic advice on management and administration to the USG for Counter-Terrorism and oversees resource mobilization and relations with funding partners, strategic communications, evaluation and compliance, and front office support to the USG. Ms. Niyazberdiyeva leads inter-agency engagement in the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact as the Chair of the Working Group on Resource Mobilization, Monitoring and Evaluation.
Ms. Niyazberdiyeva began her United Nations career in 2005 after having passed the National Competitive Examination. She held different managerial positions in the United Nations with the Department of Operational Support (DOS), the Department of Management (DM), the Office of Legal Affairs (OLA), and the Department of Public Information (DPI). Prior to the United Nations experience, Ms. Niyazberdiyeva worked with the University of Minnesota Human Rights Center as well as the International Organization for Migration and the American Bar Association/CEELI in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.
Ms. Niyazberdiyeva holds a Master of Laws degree from the University of Minnesota Law School and a Bachelor of International Law with honours from Turkmenistan State University.
United Nations Counter Terrorism Centre (UNCCT)
Mr. Mauro Miedico - Director of the United Nations Counter Terrorism Centre
(Italy, Western European and Others Group)
Mr. Miedico currently serves as Director of the United Nations Counter Terrorism Centre (UNCCT) of the United Nations Office of Counter Terrorism (UNOCT). In his current position, he oversees a variety of counter terrorism technical assistance initiatives and programmes. He also provides strategic programmatic expert advice to the USG on complex operational issues.
Mr. Miedico is a current member of the Working Group on Metaverse Governance and of the Augmented Reality Working Group of the World Economic Forum. In the past, he chaired the working groups on countering financing of terrorism and on legal and criminal justice responses to terrorism, of the Global Counter Terrorism Coordination Compact.
Prior to joining UNOCT, Mr. Miedico worked for 15 years at the Terrorism Prevention Branch of UNODC, including as its director (2016-2018). He has undertaken more than a hundred technical assistance missions and has chaired a large number of regional or sub-regional conferences and workshops, providing technical advice to dozens of countries on counter-terrorism issues.
He has been working with the United Nations since 1996, in the United States, Austria, Haiti, Serbia, Sierra Leone, and Colombia, holding different positions as Legal Advisor with the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and with the United Nations Office of Counter Terrorism (UNOCT). Mr. Miedico has particularly worked in the field of justice reform and as an advisor to a number of governments on criminal justice and on preventing and countering terrorism.
Mr. Mauro Miedico is an Italian attorney at law with post-graduate studies at the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Italy, and at Ecole Nationale d’ Administration (ENA) in France.
Mr. Steven Siqueira - Deputy Director of the United Nations Counter Terrorism Centre
(Canada, Western European and Others Group)
Mr. Siqueira is the Deputy Director of the UN Counter-Terrorism Center in the Office of Counter-Terrorism, overseeing an interdisciplinary programme of work supporting Member States to counter and ultimately prevent terrorism and violent extremism. He also served as the Deputy Director of the Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force Office of the Department of Political Affairs from 2015-2017.
From 2020-21 Mr. Siquera was the Chief of Staff and Director of Planning for the start-up of the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS). Prior to this, he served as Chief of Staff, ad interim, for three other peace operations in the Central African Republic (BINUCA, 2010), Burundi (BNUB, 2011) and Mali (MINUSMA, 2013), supporting senior leadership of those missions to implement significant changes to their mandates. In the field, Mr. Siqueira also worked in Baghdad (UNAMI, 2005-6) and as a consultant in Jerusalem (UNRWA, 2003-4).
From 2006-2010, Mr. Siqueira served as a Senior Political Affairs Officer in the Office of the Under-Secretary for Political Affairs (DPA), supporting the Under-Secretary-General on matters related to the Middle East and on the preparation of the regular and special political mission budget envelopes. He supported the strengthening of the Department from 2007-2009, resulting in increases to core staff resources.
On two occasions, Mr. Siqueira worked for the government of Canada, from 2021-2023 as Regional Director for Economic Development for the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, based in Yellowknife, and from 1994-2000 as a foreign service officer and diplomat in Ottawa, Tunis and Washington, D.C. He also assumed the role of as Director of International Government Relations, Asia-Pacific Region, for American Express International (2000-2003) where he led licensing efforts for different lines of business in the People’s Republic of China, Singapore, and Malaysia. He was Chair of the Government Relations Committee of the American Chambers of Commerce in both Hong Kong and Singapore.
Mr. Siqueira holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from McGill University (Canada) and a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from Princeton University (United States) and was a Fulbright Scholar at Princeton in 2005.
Special Projects and Innovation Branch (SPIB)
Ms. Guadalupe Megre - Officer in Charge (OiC) of the Special Projects and Innovation Branch (SPIB)
(Portugal, Western European and Others Group)
Ms. Megre currently serves as the Officer in Charge (OiC) of the Special Projects and Innovation Branch (SPIB) of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) since February 2024. She provides strategic programmatic advice to the Under-Secretary-General on operational issues and oversees a variety of counter-terrorism technical assistance initiatives and programmes. Prior to this position, Ms. Megre was the Chief of the Special Projects section in the same Branch.
Ms. Megre joined the United Nations in 2013 as the coordinator of the Counter-Terrorism Programme for West and Central Africa of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). In 2019, she took the post of Chief a.i. of the Implementation Support Section III of UNODC Terrorism Prevention Branch in Vienna, which oversaw and managed the development and implementation of projects aimed at preventing, investigating, and prosecuting terrorism in the Middle East, North Africa, the Gulf countries, Latin America, and the Caribbean, Sudan, and Yemen.
Prior to joining the United Nations, Ms. Megre began her career as a lecturer of Law at Universidade Lusíada de Lisboa and Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa, where she taught Roman Law, Constitutional Law, Public International Law, and Administrative Law. For 30 years, she held several positions in her country, including as a Law Enforcement Coordinator of Criminal Investigations; Chief of the Department of Nationalities; Director of International Relations in the Ministry of Interior; Advisor to two Deputy Ministers, Representative of the Council of Europe in the Advisory Committee on Free Movement of Workers of the European Union, Chief of Delegation to the Group "Free Movement of People in the Budapest Group,"and Chief of the Portuguese Delegation in the negotiation of the Schengen Agreement. Additionally, she served as a Security Advisor in the Portuguese Embassy of Dakar-Senegal, covering all West African countries.
Biography in PDF format
Download the biography of Mr Vladimir Voronkov, Under Secretary General for Counter-Terrorism, in PDF format.