Ambassador Collen Vixen Kelapile is a distinguished diplomat with three decades of experience shaping policy and negotiations at the United Nations.
He has served both as a UN staff member and as a government representative of Botswana. Notably, he was Botswana’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN in New York from 2018 to 2023.
He also served as President of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) at its seventy-seventh session from 2021 to 2022.
Among several other roles in the UN system, he was Chief of Staff at the UN Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 2014 to 2018.
Most recently, he served as Chief of Staff to the President of the UN General Assembly, Dennis Francis of Trinidad and Tobago, during the seventy-eighth session (2023–2024).
Since August 2025, he has supported the ICO as its Diplomatic Advisor and as the organization’s representative in charge of its UN work program in New York..
