Collen Vixen Kelapile

He was moved to Permanent Mission of the Republic of Botswana to the United Nations in 1998, of which he later became second secretary for a period of two years and into counsellor in 2003. He served as a delegate to the Fifth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, and as vice-chair on the Bureau of the Fifth Committee at the 55th session of the General Assembly in 2001 as well as Vice-Chair of the Committee for Programme and Coordination at its 42nd session in 2002. He was also Coordinator of the African Group of Experts in the Fifth Committee until 2003.

Kelapile has been active in multilateral diplomacy for more than 26 years, having served as a staff member of the United Nations Secretariat as a member of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions from 2004 to 2012, although, of which he was Vice-Chair from 2008 to 2011 and Chair from 2011 to 2012. He was Deputy Director of the Department of Africa and the Middle East in the Ministry of International Affairs and Cooperation of Botswana throughout the Africa regions from 2013 to 2014, and became Chief of Staff to the Executive-Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa from 2014 until he became Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Botswana to the United Nations in 2018.^[6] He is also concurrently Botswana's Ambassador to Cuba and High Commissioner to Jamaica on a non-resident basis, and among other positions he has held was Vice-President of the Economic and Social Council for the 2021 session, co-chair of the Group of Friends on the Responsibility to Protect for the United Nations to 2023, co-chair of the Joint Steering Committee of the African Group-CARRICOM Caucus (of which he is also co-founder, together with the Permanent Representative of Grenada) since 2020.^[7]

Kelapile is married and has a son. He is fluent in English, Setswana and Ikalanga.