Nigeria’s Amina Mohammed is UN Deputy Secretary-General

Incoming UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday announced Nigeria’s Environment minister, Amina Mohammed as his Deputy Secretary-General.

Guterres made the announcement through the spokesman of the Secretary-General, Mr Stephane Dujarric.

Amina, was former UN Under-Secretary-General to outgoing UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the 2030 Agenda for Development.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) report that Guterres also announced the appointment of two other women into top UN positions, fulfilling his plans to ensure gender in the world organisation.

The UN chief, who succeeds Ban Ki Moon, will assume office on Jan. 1, 2017, for the next five years.

Previously, Amina Mohammed was a key player in the Post-2015 development process, serving as the Special Adviser to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Post-2015 development planning. In this role, she acted as the link between the Secretary-General, his High Level Panel of Eminent Persons (HLP), and the General Assembly’s Open Working Group (OWG), among other stakeholders.

Prior to this position, Mohammed served as Founder and CEO of the Center for Development Policy Solutions and as an Adjunct Professor for the Master’s in Development Practice program at Columbia University. Previously, she acted as the Senior Special Assistant to the President of Nigeria on the Millennium Development Goals after serving three presidents over a period of six years. In 2005, she was charged with the coordination of Nigeria’s debt relief funds toward the achievement of the MDGs. From 2002-2005, Mohammed coordinated the Task Force on Gender and Education for the UN Millennium Project.

Earlier in her career, Amina Mohammed was Founder and Executive Director of Afri-Projects Consortium, a multidisciplinary firm of engineers and quantity surveyors. She also worked with the architectural engineering firm Archcon Nigeria in association with Norman and Dawbarn, UK.