The Hon. Dr. Theo-Ben Gurirab is the Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Namibia, elected to this position on 20 March 2005. His last position was as the Prime Minister of the Republic of Namibia (2002 - 2005). Prior to that Dr. Gurirab was Minister of Foreign Affairs (1990 - 2002). His portfolio between 2000-2002 included that of being the Minister of Information and Broadcasting also. Dr. Gurirab held the title of Dean of African Foreign Ministers until 2002. Dr. Gurirab was a member of the Constituent Assembly Constitution Drafting Committee and also a Founding Member of Parliament. He is a member of the Central Committee and Politburo of the SWAPO Party since 1990.

In over 35 years in the field of international affairs and diplomacy, he has known and worked with three generations of world leaders and five Secretaries-General of the United Nations. In 1999, he returned to the United Nations to serve as President of the 54th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. He was instrumental in driving the UN reform process forward and presided over the drafting of the historic United Nations Millennium Declaration in 2000. Contrary to the UN tradition, drafting of the Declaration was not done in the Committee of the Whole, but entrusted to the President himself and his advisors. It was during his tenure as President of the UN General Assembly that the decision to accord Observer Status to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) was taken.

As a seasoned diplomat and negotiator, Dr. Gurirab had served for 14 years as SWAPO's Chief Representative to the United Nations and, later, as its Permanent Observer. Under his stewardship, SWAPO of Namibia was accorded a Permanent Observer status at the United Nations. From 1986 to 1990, he was SWAPO's Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Throughout these years, he played a major part in multilateral negotiations and conference diplomacy leading to Namibia's independence.

Over the 14 years of his stewardship as SWAPO's top diplomat at the United Nations, from 1972 to 1986, the organization's political and diplomatic status grew from that of a petitioner on the sidelines of diplomacy to a mainstream negotiator and participant in the international arena. Through his efforts Dr. Gurirab made the struggle of the Namibian people a cause of celebre of the international community. The protracted negotiations that produced UN Security Council Resolution 435 of 1978, containing an internationally accepted plan to bring independence to Namibia, represented one of the high points of his political and diplomatic career.

Dr. Gurirab was one of the first SWAPO leaders to return home in 1989, to help organize pre-independence elections. He was also one of the leading SWAPO negotiators of the ceasefire agreement, signed in March 1989, between South Africa's apartheid regime.