– Amina J. Mohammed, the minister of environment of Nigeria, has been announced UN Deputy Secretary-General
– Incoming UN Secretary-General António Guterres has also appointed two other women into top UN positions
António Guterres, the 9th Secretary-General of the United Nations, has announced Amina Mohammed as his Deputy Secretary-General on Thursday, December 15.
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The announcement was made public by his Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman of the Secretary-General.
Announcement from Secretary-General designate reads in part:
“I have an announcement to make that I have been asked to make by the Secretary-General designate, António Guterres, and I will read it out to you in his name.
Again, this is in the name of the Secretary-General-designate: 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.
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.
These appointments are the foundations of my team, which I will continue to build, respecting my pledges on gender parity and geographical diversity.
The biographies of all these three appointees are available in the Spokesman’s Office…And we will be emailing out this statement very briefly.”
Prior to this position, Ms Mohammed was a key player in the Post-2015 development process.
She served as the Special Adviser to outgoiing UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Post-2015 development planning and the 2030 Agenda for development.
Besides, two other female officials have been appointed into top UN positions — Mr. Guterres advocates gender parity.
The UN chief, who succeeds outgoing secretary-general Ban, will assume office on January 1, 2017, for the next five years.
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