Hong-ghi Choi was inaugurated as Director of UNITAR CIFAL Jeju/JITC in 2021. He has been committed to raising the value of the mission that provides government authorities and civil society leaders in the Asia-Pacific region with opportunities to learn practical knowledge and share lessons learned for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs). He has led and supervised a wide range of capacity-building programs in the field of economic and social development and environmental sustainability along with cross-cutting issues, including peace, and also contributed to strengthening partnerships with the UNITAR, other UN agencies, and the CIFAL network to develop and keep the training programs at the highest quality.
Before joining UNITAR CIFAL Jeju/JITC, he served as a career diplomat for more than 30 years, and he was posted in several countries like the USA, Ethiopia, Austria, Jordan, and Turkey. Ever since he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1984, he has carried out different missions in various countries, including as counsellor and as a Korean permanent mission to the United Nations in New York, USA. Right before his mission in UNITAR CIFAL Jeju/JITC, he served as an Ambassador for International Security Affairs in 2017 and the Korean Ambassador to Turkey between 2018 and 2020.