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nited Nations Secretary-General António Guterres recently appointed Indonesia’s former national development planning minister, Armida Alisjahbana, as executive secretary to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).

Armida said on Sunday she would assume the highest position at the Bangkok-based regional commission of the UN Economic and Social Council in November, taking over duties from interim caretaker Hahm Hong-joo of South Korea.

The organization was established in 1947 to encourage economic cooperation among its 53 member states and nine associate members in Asia and the Pacific. Areas of cooperation include macroeconomic policy and development, trade and investment, the environment and sustainable development, according to its website.

Armida, a professor of economics at Universitas Padjadjaran in Bandung, West Java, is to succeed Pakistani economist Shamshad Akhtar, who has led UNESCAP since 2014.

Armida had served as the former chief of the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) under then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono from 2009 to 2014.

During that same period, she was also alternate governor of the World Bank and alternate governor of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) representing the Indonesian government.

The daughter of celebrated diplomat Mochtar Kusumaatmadja, she was also involved in various research projects and consultancies to the UN University Institute for Advanced Study in Tokyo, the World Bank, the ADB, the European Commission and the International Labor Organization (ILO), as well as Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Agency for International Development.