Great appointments by new UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres

The new United Nations Secretary General António Guterres has had his first key appointments. He has hired Amina Mohammed of Nigeria as the U.N. Deputy Secretary-General.

We all know and admire her for her work serving as the Special Adviser to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Post-2015 development planning. She played a critical role with the Ambassador Kamal and Ambassador Donoghue in facilitating the process that culminated in the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015.

Since then she has been a  Minister of Environment of Nigeria, from 11 November 2015.
As his Chef de Cabinet he has chosen Ambassador Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti of Brazil. Many of us working in New York will remember her as Ambassador for Brazil from July 2007 to November 2013. She played the critical role in following up President Lula's call for a new Summit on sustainable development made in September 2007. First persuading G77 to support the call in October 2008 and then leading the call through the GA resolution in December 2008 and chairing parts of the successful negotiations in Rio in June 2012. Previously she was also a Vice-Chairperson of the Preparatory Committee for the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development and led Brazil's delegation to the negotiations in preparation for the International Conference on Financing for Development.
Both Amina and Maria have been huge supporters of stakeholder engagement in the UN. These are great appointments.

Comments

  1. LoyJanuary 12, 2017 at 2:16 PM

    Second your view Felix. Having known, met and heard them during my time in NY in the run up and follow up to Rio +20 I believe they will make a difference. A more credible team for the new era. Loy Rego MARS Practitioners Network

    ReplyDelete

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