Mark Lowcock was appointed as the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator in May 2017, serving up to June 2021. He was previously Permanent Secretary of the United Kingdom's Department for International Development. He has spent more than 30 years leading and managing responses to humanitarian crises across the globe. He has authored opinion articles for The Washington Post, the Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, Le Monde, CNN, and others and is a Distinguished Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development. Lowock resides in London, UK.