MELKERT, Ad (Adrianus Petrus Wilhelmus)

(1956– )

   Director and politician. Melkert studied politics at the University of Amsterdam. Before his political career, for a few years he was di rector of internal affairs of the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Interna tionale Bijstand (NOVIB, Dutch Organisation for International As sistance, which is part of the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief since 1994). In 1986, he was elected to Parliament for the Social Democratic Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA). After he served in the government as minister of social affairs and employment for four years, he returned to Parliament as chairman of his party. In the 2002 election, in which he was an opponent of Pim Fortuijn, his party lost many seats, for which reason he left politics. In the same year, he be came executive director of the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and in 2006, he was appointed undersecretary-general of the United Na tions Development Program (UNDP).