Mr. Erken was appointed as a Director of the UNFPA Division of Communications and Strategic Partnerships in 2015. Mr. Erken has been working with the UNFPA for more than 20 years. He joined the UNFPA in 1993 to be part of the Secretariat of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). After that he has worked on various positions, including Special Assistant to Deputy Executive Director on Programme, Associate Director for Policy and Global Quality Standards, Development Group Office, Representative in Bangladesh and Vietnam. Mr. Erken holds a Master’s degree from the Cultural Anthropology from the Catholic University Nijmegen, Netherlands (now renamed Radboud University.)