THE AFRICAN COURIER. Reporting Africa and its Diaspora! The African Courier is an international magazine published in Germany to report on Africa and the Diaspora African experience. The first issue of the bimonthly magazine appeared on the newsstands on 15 February 1998. The African Courier is a communication forum for European-African political, economic and cultural exchanges, and a voice for Africa in Europe.
New UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday announced the appointment of Nigeria’s Amina Mohammed as Deputy Secretary-General.
“I am pleased to announce that I will be appointing Ms Amina J. Mohammed of Nigeria as my Deputy Secretary-General, and Ms Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti of Brazil as my Chef De Cabinet. I also intend to create the position of Special Advisor on Policy, and to appoint Ms Kyung-wha Kang of the Republic of Korea to this new role,” Guterres said.
“I am happy to count on the efforts of these three highly competent women, whom I have chosen for their strong backgrounds in global affairs, development, diplomacy, human rights and humanitarian action,” he added. “These appointments are the foundations of my team, which I will continue to build, respecting my pledges on gender parity and geographical diversity.”
Amina Mohammed (55), Nigeria’s current Minister of Environment, served as UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser to outgoing Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Post-2015 Development Planning.
Mrs Mohammed is one of the ministers appointed into his cabinet purely on merit by President Buhari.
She has served three Nigerian presidents over a period of six years as Senior Special Assistant on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In 2005 she was charged with the co-ordination of the debt relief funds (US$1 billion per annum) towards the achievement of MDGs in Nigeria. From 2002 to 2005, Mohammed served as co-ordinator of the Task Force on Gender and Education for the United Nations Millennium Project.
Mohammed was born in Kaduna, Northern Nigeria, in 1961, to a British mother and a Nigerian father. She has six children.
Guterres, succeeds outgoing secretary-general Ban, who bows out on 31 December 2016 after a decade of two terms, while the new secretary-general assumes office on 1 January 2017, for the next five years.
Sola Jolaoso
