Acting Secretary Amrit Bahadur Rai has been promoted as the Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A meeting of the Council of Ministers held on Tuesday decided to promote Rai to the coveted post of secretary.
With the cabinet decision, Rai assumed his duty as the secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs starting today.
Rai had been assigned as the acting secretary following the appointment of Secretary Sewa Lamsal as the Nepali Ambassador to Belgium.
The government promoted Rai as the secretary after Lamsal was appointed as the ambassador to Belgium following the endorsement by the Parliamentary Hearing Committee.
Prior to assuming his role Acting Chief Secretary, Rai served as Division Chief of the United Nations, International Organizations, and International Law Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he also fulfilled the role of spokesperson for the Ministry.
Rai's international diplomatic experience includes his tenure as Nepal's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York (2019-2023), where he held leadership roles such as Vice-President of the UN General Assembly, Chair of the Economic and Financial Committee, and Chair of the Global Coordination Bureau for Least Developed Countries. He also served as Nepal's Ambassador to South Africa (2014-2018), with concurrent accreditation to 18 other countries.
Mr Rai, who holds Master's degree in Public Management from University of Potsdam, Germany and in Public Administration from Tribhuvan University of Nepal, joined the Nepal Foreign Service in 2005 as an Under Secretary.
Earlier, he served in the Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Civil Aviation, the Ministry of General Administration, and the Ministry of Women, Children, and Social Welfare.
Born in 1970 in Sankhuwasabha district, Mr Rai had joined the civil service in 1996.
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