H.E. Sugeeshwara Gunaratna
Sugeeshwara Gunaratna joined the Sri Lanka Foreign Service in the year 2000. He is currently the Ambassador-designate to France and the Permanent Representative to UNESCO. Prior to his current assignment, he served as the Director-General for Europe & North America at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment & Tourism. He has served as the Deputy Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in New York and the Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Ethiopia & Permanent Representative to the African Union. During his tenure in New York, he was the Vice-President representing Sri Lanka at the 16th & 17th Conferences of the States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He was a member of the Sri Lanka delegation to a number of UN Conferences and played a leading role in getting the support of the UN General Assembly to pass two resolutions sponsored by Sri Lanka, declaring 1st March as “World Seagrass Day” & December 21st as “World Meditation Day”.
He has also served as the Deputy High Commissioner of Sri Lanka in London.
Sugeeshwara Gunaratna's assignments also include the Sri Lanka High Commission in New Delhi as Counsellor/Political & Media, and as Second Secretary at the Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in Geneva, handling human rights and humanitarian affairs.
At the Foreign Ministry, he has served as the Acting Director-General of the Public Diplomacy Division & Spokesperson of the Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry; as Director of the United Nations, Multilateral Affairs, Human Rights and Conferences Division & as Deputy Director at the South Asia & SAARC Division.
He is a graduate of the Science Faculty of the University of Colombo and holds a Master's Degree in Public Administration & Management from the Faculty of Graduate Studies of the University of Colombo. He also has post-graduate qualifications in Corporate Communications and Public Relations from Centennial College, Toronto, Canada.
He is married with three children.