Joy Uche Angela Ogwu is presently the Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations, in which she was appointed since 2008.  She was the former Foreign Minister of Nigeria in 2006, where she was appointed by the former President Olusegun Obasanjo.  Prior to her ministerial career, she served as Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA).

Mrs. Ogwu obtained her Bachelors and Masters Degree from Rutgers University in the United States.  She later acquired her PhD from the University of Lagos in Nigeria.  Mrs. Ogwu started her career as an assistant professor at the Nigerian National War College and the Nigerian Institure for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS). At the same time, she joined the NIIA as a lecturer, where she obtained a research fellowship during when she published her first book, Nigerian Foreign Policy: Alternative Futures in 1986.  As a professor, her career has been focused on the developing countries of Latin America garnering an investigation into the possibilities of a proficient South-South relationship between Sub-Saharan African and Latin America.  She later held a visiting fellowship at the University of London's Institure of Latin American Studies, where she has been published extensively in portuguese, Spanish, French and Croatian. As an expert on security issues, she served on the United Nations Secretary General's Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters.

As a woman in a foremost position in her distinguished career specialization, Ogwu has become a voice for women's development and human rights. In this subject, her perspective spans Asia Pacific, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa with prolific publications on regional aspects of the subject. Her participation in the government under the auspices of NIIA and the Presidential Advisory Council on International Relations enabled positive contribution to practical government policy such as the construct of the Nigeria-South America relationship on a macro level and the United Nations Educational Social and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) funded program for teaching human rights in Nigerian Schools on a micro level. Furthermore, her continual role on the Nigerian National Delegation to UN General Assembly exhibits her contribution as an influential figure in the formation of Nigeria's relationship with the rest of the world.

Mrs. Ogwu has published extensively in scholarly journals and books and lectured all around the world on South-South relations.  Among her numerous honors, Joy Ogwu holds the National Meritorious Service Award of Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (OFR)