20 January 1910
Myanmar's distinguished civil servant: U Nyun
room Myanmar
people U Nyun
U Nyun (pictured here) was one of Myanmar's most distinguished public servants. He was born on 20 January 1910 and was educated at Rangoon, Oxford and London Universities. He served in the Indian Civil Service (ICS) and then as a senior civil servant in the government of independent Burma, before joining the United Nations in 1953. From 1959-1973 he was the Executive Secretary of UN ECAFE (now ESCAP), working directly under Secretaries-General Dag Hammarskjold and U Thant.
U Nyun was one of many trained and experienced ICS and Burmese Civil Service (BCS) officers in Burma at the time of independence; others included U Ka Si, James Barrington, U Chan Tha, U Kyaw Min, U Kyaw Khine, U Balwant Singh, U Shwe Mra, U Win Pe, U Kyin, and U Hla Shein. In the 1950s, politics was messy and often violent, and it was the work of these civil servants that played a big role in ensuring the day-to-day workings of government.