Kenyan appointed UNEP deputy executive

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed Kenya's Amina Mohamed, as assistant secretary-general and deputy executive director of the UN Environment Program (UNEP).

In a statement issued on Friday, Ban said 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.

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

"Among many important roles, Mohamed will be responsible for further advancing the UNEP Medium Term Strategy and related reform agenda, as well as strengthen UNEP's political and substantive input to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development 2012 and beyond," the statement said.

From 2000 to 2006, Mohamed was the ambassador and permanent representative of Kenya to the UN in Geneva.

Her many achievements included being the first woman to chair the General Council of the World Trade Organization, and the first African and first woman to be elected chair of the council for the International Organization for Migration.

Since 2008, Mohamed has been the permanent secretary and chief executive officer of the Ministry of Justice, National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs of the Republic of Kenya where her leadership played a key role in the political, legal and constitutional reform process.

Born on Oct. 5, 1961, Mohamed graduated with a LLM in International Law from Kiev State University, and has also undertaken post graduate studies at University of Oxford and the Kenya School of Law.