The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, H. E. Dr. Jean Ping had announced the appointment of Dr. Mayaki at the 20th Summit of the NEPAD Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee (HSGIC), which endorsed the appointment at its meeting on 31 January 2009 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The 12th AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government on 2 February 2009 sealed the appointment by endorsing the HSGIC decision. A seasoned academic and politician, the new NEPAD CEO is a former Prime Minister of Niger and university don. He takes over leadership of the NEPAD Secretariat from Professor Firmino Mucavele, who was recalled by the Government of his home country, Mozambique, in January 2009. Accompanied by Ambassador Olukorede Willoughby, NEPAD’s Deputy Chief Executive, Dr. Mayaki was introduced to the UN agencies by Dr. Abdalla Hamdok, Director of the NEPAD and Regional Integration Division (NRID) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) that runs the secretariat of the Regional Coordination Mechanism (RCM). The mechanism is organised into nine clusters in support of the AU and NEPAD. The RCM members gave Dr. Mayaki a warm welcome and used the opportunity to highlight their hopes for the mechanism while committing themselves to ensuring efficient and enhanced cooperation on NEPAD programmes and the 10 Year Capacity Building Programme for the AU. Dr. Mayaki said he was looking forward to working with the UN organizations. Ambassador Willoughby, who lauded the agencies for their support, stressed the “irreversible” process of NEPAD integration into the structures of the AU. What is left now is to work out the operational modalities, he said. Earlier Dr. Mayaki had made a more specific commitment in answer to questions, saying that studies on the integration of NEPAD into the African Union structures would be completed by the end of April
2009.
For more information, see
http://www.nepad.org/2005/files/home.php
http://www.uneca.org/eca_resources/news/