Amina Jane Mohammed GCON (born 27 June 1961) is a British Nigerian diplomat and politician who is serving as the 5th Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations. Previously, she was Nigerian Minister of Environment from 2015 to 2016 and was a player in the Post-2015 Development Agenda process. She is also Chair of United Nations Sustainable Development Group.
Early life and education
Amina Jane Mohammed was born in Liverpool, England, on 27 June 1961 to a Hausa–Fulani Nigerian veterinarian–officer and a British nurse. She is the eldest of five daughters
Amina J. Mohammed attended a primary school in Kaduna and Maiduguri in Nigeria and The Buchan School on the Isle of Man. She further attended Henley Management College in 1989 but she does not hold a formal bachelor’s degree. After she finished her studies her father demanded she return to Nigeria.
Career
Between 1981 and 1991, Amina J. Mohammed worked with Archcon Nigeria, an architectural design firm in association with Norman and Dawbarn United Kingdom. She founded Afri-Projects Consortium in 1991 and served as its Executive Director until 2001.
From 2002 until 2005, Amina Mohammed coordinated the Task Force on Gender and Education for the United Nations Millennium Project.
Amina later acted as the Senior Special Assistant to the President of Nigeria on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In 2005, she was charged with the coordination of Nigeria’s debt relief funds toward the achievement of the MDGs. Her mandate included designing a Virtual Poverty Fund with innovative approaches to poverty reduction, budget coordination and monitoring, as well as providing advice on pertinent issues regarding poverty, public sector reform and sustainable development.
Amina Mohammed later became the 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. During that time, she served on numerous international advisory boards and panels, including the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Post-2015 Development Agenda and the Independent Expert Advisory Group on the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development. She also chaired the Advisory Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Global Monitoring Report on Education (GME).
From 2012, Amina Mohammed was a key player in the Post-2015 Development Agenda 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. From 2014, she also served on the Secretary-General’s Independent Expert Advisory Group on the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development.
Minister of the Environment (2015–2017)
Amina J. Mohammed served as Federal Minister of the Environment in the First Cabinet of President Muhammadu Buhari from November 2015 to February 2017. During that time, she was Nigeria’s representative in the African Union (AU) Reform Steering Committee, chaired by Paul Kagame. She resigned from the Nigerian Federal Executive Council on 24 February 2017.
In 2017, Amina Mohammed was accused by an advocacy group of granting illegal permits to Chinese firms to import endangered Nigerian timber during her term as Nigeria’s environment minister. The Nigerian government has denied the claims.[20]
Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations (2017–present)
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In January 2017, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced his intention to appoint Mohammed Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations. In this capacity, she is a member of the UN Interagency Coordination Group on Antimicrobial Resistance (IACG).
