Peter Thomson, OF (born 1948 in Suva), is a Fijian diplomat who served as President of the General Assembly of the United Nations from September 2016 until September 2017. He has been Fiji 's Permanent Representative to the United Nations since February 2010.For the year 2014, he was elected President of the Executive Board of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Office of Project Services (UNOPS). He presided over Fiji 's election to the 2013 Chair of the Group of 77 and China – the UN's largest negotiating group with 133 Member States. He was the architect of the name -change of the UN's Group of Asian States to the new name of the Asia -Pacific Group, effective 2011. In 2014 the President of Fiji conferred on Peter Thomson the award of Officer of the Order of Fiji.U.N. Secretary -General Antonio Guterres has appointed the outgoing president of the General Assembly as the first special Envoy for the Oceans, seeking to galvanize efforts to protect the world 's seas.
Family
Thomson, a fifth generation Fijian, was born to British colonial administrator Sir Ian Thomson (Colonial Secretary in the 1960s and later as Governor of the British Virgin Islands) and his wife Lady Nancy Thomson. He married publisher Marijcke Thomson in Fiji in 1973. They have two children, James and Nicola, and three granddaughters.
Education
Educated at Suva Grammar School and Natabua High School, he finished schooling at the International Centre, Sevenoaks School, England, in 1967. He later obtained a BA in political studies at Auckland University and a postgraduate diploma in development studies at Wolfson College, Cambridge.
