Permanent Representative
Ambassador Sérgio França Danese (Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1954), a career diplomat, is, since June 28th, 2023, the Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations in New York. A former high school student in the Colégio de Aplicação of the University of São Paulo, he graduated at that University in 1976 with a major in Modern Languages, and was a graduate student in Hispanic American Literature at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (1977-1979). He entered the Instituto Rio Branco, Brazil's Diplomatic Academy, in 1980, and graduated as a Third Secretary of Embassy in December 1981, having received the Rio Branco Award and the Vermeil Medal. He was promoted to Second Secretary in June 1984, First Secretary in June 1989, Counselor in December 1994, Minister in June 2000, and Ambassador in December 2008.
In Brazil, he was the assistant to the Director of the Department of Americas at the Ministry of External Relations (1981-1985), assistant to the Diplomatic Advisor to the President (1985-1987), assistant to the Secretary-General for External Relations (1992-1993), Secretary-General to the Brazilian Delegation to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio-92), speaker for the Ministry of the Environment and the Amazon Region (1993-1994), Special Counselor and Speaker for the Minister at the Ministry of Finance (1994), Political Counselor and Speaker for the Minister at the Ministry of External Relations (1995-1998), Director of the Bureau for Congressional and Federative Affairs in the Ministry of External Relations (2009-2012), Undersecretary General for Brazilian Communities Abroad in the Ministry of External Relations, in charge of consular affairs, international legal cooperation, immigration and international treaties (2012-2015), and Secretary General of Foreign Affairs (vice minister, 2015-2016, and acting Foreign Minister during the absences of the Minister). Abroad, he was Secretary of the Embassies in Washington (1987-1990) and Mexico (1990-1992), Counselor and Representative to the Point of Contact of the MTCR at the Embassy in Paris (1998-2000), Minister-Counselor and DCM in Buenos Aires (2000-2005), Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in Algiers, Algeria (2005-2009), in Buenos Aires, Argentina (2016-2020), in Pretoria, South Africa (2020-2022), and in Lima, Peru (2022-2023).
At the Rio Branco Institute, he was Professor of Brazilian Diplomatic History (1982-1987 and 1994-1996), and of Brazilian Contemporary Foreign Policy (1993-1996). He has published Diplomacia presidencial (“Presidential diplomacy”, diplomatic history and Brazilian foreign policy, Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 1999, and Brasília: Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão, 2017), A escola da liderança (“The school of leadership”, diplomatic history and Brazilian foreign policy, Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2009), A história verdadeira do Pássaro-Dodô (“The true story of the Dodo Bird”, children's fiction, São Paulo: Saraiva, 1998), A sombra do meio dia (“The shadow of noon”, fiction, Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 2003), and O outro lado da Lua (“The other side of the moon”, fiction, Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 2018). He has published articles on foreign affairs and Brazilian foreign policy in different media in Brazil and abroad. He received decorations from France, Germany, Italy, Lebanon, Venezuela, Argentina, Portugal, Surinam, Uruguay, Chile, Mexico and Peru. He speaks Portuguese, French, Spanish and English. He is married to Mrs. Angela Tisani França Danese, an official in the Brazilian Foreign Service, and has two children.