Biographical Note

Secretary-General Appoints Amina Mohamed of Kenya Deputy Executive Director

 

of United Nations Environment Programme

 

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced today the appointment of Amina Mohamed, a Kenyan national, as Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Ms. Mohamed will succeed Angela Cropper of Trinidad and Tobago, to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for her outstanding contribution and exceptional service to UNEP in the Deputy Executive Director post.

Among many important roles, Ms. Mohamed will be responsible for further advancing the UNEP Medium-Term Strategy and related reform agenda, as well as strengthening the Programme’s political and substantive input to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development 2012 and beyond.

Ms. Mohamed brings to the position a wealth of national and international experience as a distinguished diplomat, lawyer, manager and policymaker working across the sustainable development and environment policy agendas.

From 2000 to 2006, she was the Permanent Representative of Kenya to the United Nations in Geneva, where her many achievements included becoming the first woman to chair the General Council of the World Trade Organization, as well as the first African and first woman to be elected Chair of the Council for the International Organization for Migration.

Since 2008, Ms. Mohamed has been the Permanent Secretary in Kenya’s Ministry of Justice, National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs, where her leadership played a key role in the political, legal and constitutional reform process.

Born on 5 October 1961, Ms. Mohamed graduated with a master’s degree in international law from Kyiv State University, and has also undertaken post-graduate studies at the University of Oxford and the Kenya School of Law.

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For information media • not an official record