Who Is Helen Clark?| Helen Clark Biography

Helen Clark was officially born Helen Elizabeth Clark was the 37 Prime Minister of New Zealand and former United Nations Development Programme Administrator. She was the fifth-longest serving Prime Minister of New Zealand and also its second woman to be in that office.

Helen Clark Prime Minister

Clark became the second woman to serve as Prime Minister of New Zealand, and the first to have won office at an election. As a female head of government, Clark was a member of the Council of Women World Leaders.
Clark entered office just three years after the adoption of the Mixed Member Proportional voting system, which had produced an unstable National-led government under Bolger and Shipley. She negotiated the formation of successive coalition governments. Political scientist Bryce Edwards identified Clark’s ability to lead stable governments as her most significant achievement, arguing that her ability to work with a variety of coalition partners-including the Alliance, Jim Anderton’s Progressive Party, Green, United Future and New Zealand First-consolidated public support for MMP.

Clark’s particular interests included social policy and international affairs. She was also a strong supporter of nuclear disarmament, she pursued a policy of peace-making within the Pacific region. Commentators praised her for overseeing a period of sustained and stable economic growth, with an increase in employment that saw a gradual lowering of the unemployment rate to a record low of 3.6%. She made every attempt to make sure that gender was not an issue in politics.

Helen Clark UNDP| UNDP Administrator

Helen became the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on the 17th of April 2009. She consequently became the first woman to lead the organisation. She worked to reform the administration and bureaucracy of UNDP, with an emphasis on greater transparency in the organisation.

The Publish What You Fund campaign ranked UNDP as the most transparent aid organisation in the world in 2015 and 2016, under Clark’s administration. In February 2015, Clark visited Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to express solidarity with those working to prevent the spread of Ebola. During her tenure, the ratio of women to men at UNDP reached 50%, including at the most senior level of the organisation.

On 24 May 2016, a Foreign Policy article alleged that Clark’s tenure as Administrator had “Left a trail of embittered peers and subordinates”, and accused her of “Undercutting the UN’s promotion of human rights”.
The article centred on an allegation that her senior staff retaliated against a critical report of the UNDP by forcing out an official who had participated in the investigation.
On 26 January 2017, Clark announced that she would not seek re-election as UNDP Administrator after the end of her four-year term.

Helen Clark United Nations Secretary-General |United Nations | UN

In January 2014 during an interview with the Guardian Clark commented on the possibility that she could take over as UN Secretary-General after Ban Ki-moon’s retirement in 2016. On the 4th of April 2016, Helen officially submitted her nomination as New Zealand’s candidate for the 2016 UN Secretary-General selection.

In an interview on the same day, Clark stressed that she was running as the gender-neutral best candidate and not “On the basis of being a woman.” The UN’s role in the Haiti cholera outbreak has been widely discussed and criticised. During the United Nations Secretary-General Candidate informal dialogues, Clark said that the UN needed to deal quickly with sexual exploitation and abuse, and gender-based violence by peacekeepers.

She finished in the fifth place during the sixth poll where her candidacy was effectively vetoed when three of the permanent Security Council members voted against her. Clark’s bid for Secretary-General is the focus of a documentary film, My Year With Helen, which is directed by Gaylene Preston, which premiered on February 2018.

Dame Helen Clark

Former Prime Minister Clark made to the list of the title system although she didn’t become a dame. She was in the select group that was to win New Zealand’s highest honour.

What Is Helen Clark Doing Now?

Clark was first elected in the New Zealand House of Representatives during the 1981 general election. In the election, she was one of the eight female members in the 40th Parliament. In winning the Mount Albert electorate in Auckland, she became the second woman elected to represent an Auckland electorate, and the seventeenth woman elected to the New Zealand Parliament.

During her first term in the House, Clark became a member of the Statutes Revision Committee. During her subsequent term, she was selected to be chair of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Select Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control. She consequently combined both committees with the Defence Select Committee in 1985 to form a single committee.

In 1987, Clark was elected as Cabinet minister in the Fourth Labour Government, led by David Lange, Geoffrey Palmer and Mike Moore. She also served as Minister of Conservation from August 1987 until January 1989 and as Minister of Housing from August 1987 until August 1989. While serving as Deputy Prime Minister, Clark chaired the Cabinet Social Equity Committee and was a member of several other important Cabinet committees, such as the Policy Committee, Economic Development and Employment Committee, and Domestic and External Security Committee.

On 1 December 1993, she became the Leader of the Opposition. This was despite the Labour Party rating poorly in opinion polls in the run-up to the 1996 general election, and Clark’s low personal approval rating, she survived an attempted leadership coup by senior members who favoured Phil Goff. Labour lost the election in October 1996, but Clark remained as Opposition leader.

Jacinda Ardern Helen Clark

Jacinda Ardern is a New Zealand politician serving since 26 October 2017 as the 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand. In 2001, Jacinda began her career by working as a researcher in the office of Prime Minister Helen Clark right after graduating from the University of Waikato.

How Old Is Helen Clark?

Clark was born on the 26th of February 1950. She is 69 years old as of 2019.

 Helen Elizabeth Clark | Helen Clark Family

Helen was born Helen Elizabeth Clark and raised on a farm in the outskirts of Hamilton. She is the eldest among four daughters. Her father, George was a farmer while her mother McMurray Margret was a primary school teacher and was of Irish birth.
She went to at Te Pahu Primary School, at Epsom Girls’ Grammar School in Auckland. She then enrolled at the University of Auckland, where she majored in politics and successfully graduated with an MA (Honours) in 1974. Helen’s thesis focused on rural political behaviour and representation. She became politically active while she was still a teenager, protesting against the Vietnam War and campaigning against foreign military bases that are located in New Zealand.

Helen Clark Lesbian?| Husband | Gay

Clark is married to her partner of five years, Peter Davis, who is a sociologist. The couple married in 1981, shortly before she was elected to Parliament. She claims to have been under pressure from some of the Labour members to marry for political purposes. This was despite her personal reservations about marriage. Her husband Davis is currently a professor in medical sociology and director of COMPASS (Centre of Methods and Policy Application in the Social Sciences) at the University of Auckland. Clark had reservations about marriage hence creating accusations of her being gay. She is not gay. She is currently married to Peter Davis.

Helen Clark Book | Clark Biography Book

Helen Clark Twitter

Helen Clark Instagram