The chief executive of Concern, Tom Arnold, has been appointed by the United Nations to its top-level committee on humanitarian aid.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed Mr Arnold as one of four alternate members of the 12-member advisory committee for the newly formed Central Emergency Response Fund.
He is the only Irish member and one of just three representatives from non-governmental organisations appointed to the committee, which will hold its first meeting in New York on May 23rd.
This is the second major UN appointment for Mr Arnold. From 2003 to 2005, he was a member of the UN Task Force on Hunger, which drew up a plan to halve world hunger by 2015.
Commenting on his appointment, Mr Arnold said he regarded it as a vote of confidence by the UN in the work being done by Concern in the world's most vulnerable countries.