Araya Desta

Araya Desta, also referred to as Araia Desta, (born 1945 – 28 May 2021) was an Eritrean diplomat who had served as the Permanent Representative of the State of Eritrea to the African Union and UNECA. He previously served as the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Eritrea to the United Nations in New York from 2006 to 2014.

Araya was born in Senafe, and in 1969 received a Diploma in Weather Forecasting from the Stanmore Meteorological Training Centre in London. From 1972 to 1976, he was Head of the Meteorological Application Section of the Ethiopian Meteorological Services in Addis Ababa, and from 1963 to 1972, he served as Weather Forecaster for the Civil Aviation Administration in Asmara.

He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, in 1980, and a master's degree in atmospheric physics at the University of Toronto, Canada, in 1985. Araya worked as a Computer Programmer for the Amoco Canada Petroleum Company in Calgary from 1980 to 1982. Between 1982 and 1991, Araya served on the board of the Eritrean Relief Association in Khartoum, Sudan. From 1982 to 1993, he was Executive Director and Chair of the Eritrean Relief Association-Canada Board of Directors in Ottawa.

Araya then served as First Secretary and Consul at the Eritrean Consulate Ottawa, Ontario, Canada from 1993 to 1994. From 1994 to 2001, he was Minister's Counsellor of Eritrea’s embassy in Beijing, China, while simultaneously serving as a Permanent Representative to the United Nations for his country from 1997 to 2002. He then served as the Eritrean ambassador to the Nordic countries, residing in Stockholm, Sweden, from 2002 to 2005.