On Thursday, the UN Secretary-General-designate Antonio Guterres announced the appointment of Nigeria’s Amina Mohammed as his Deputy Secretary-General.
But who is she?
Here are 16 things to know about her:
- She was born June 27, 1961.
- She was born in Kaduna State, Northern Nigeria to a British mother and a Nigerian father.
- Mohammed hails from Gombe Local Government Area, Gombe state.
- She has been working in the field of development for more than 30 years both in the public sector and the private sector.
- Between 1981 and 1991, she worked with the architectural engineering firm Archcon Nigeria in association with Norman and Dawbarn, UK.
- In 1991, she founded Afri-Projects Consortium, a multidisciplinary firm of engineers and quantity surveyors. She became its Executive Director for ten years.
- She acted as the Senior Special Assistant to the President of Nigeria on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) after serving three presidents over a period of six years.
- She 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.
- From 2002-2005, Mohammed coordinated the Task Force on Gender and Education for the UN Millennium Project.
- In 2005, she was charged with the coordination of Nigeria’s debt relief funds toward the achievement of the MDGs.
- Amina Mohammed received the National Honours Award of the Order of the Federal Republic in 2006.
- In 2007, she got inducted into the Nigerian Women’s Hall of Fame.
- In June 7, 2012, she was appointed as the Special Adviser to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Post-2015 development planning. She was a key player in the Post-2015 development process.
- Mohammed was appointed Minister of the Environment by President Muhammadu Buhari when he swore in his new Cabinet on 11 November 2015.
- Since April 5, 2016, Mohammed has served as Chair of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC).
- She is blessed with six children.