The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has appointed Cameroonian national, Mr. Samuel Nyambi, as Acting Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Sierra Leone.
This appointment follows the departure of the previous Resident Representative, Mr. Victor Angelo, who now head’s the UN mission in Chad and the Central African Republic (MINURCAT).
Mr. Nyambi assumed his duties at UNDP in Freetown on Friday, 23 May 2008. Prior to this appointment, Mr. Nyambi served as Senior Development Coordinator, promoting development work and providing development support and services to the UN in South Africa.
Prior to that, Mr. Nyambi also served as the Regional Manager of the UNDP Regional Service Centre for Eastern and Southern Africa, based in Johannesburg, where he was responsible for 22 countries.
Mr. Nyambi’s long career with the United Nations has also seen him based in Ethiopia where he worked as UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative. He also worked at the UN headquarters in New York, serving as the Director of the UNDP Office to Combat Desertification and Drought (UNSO), working on sustainable development, environment, desertification and drought issues.
He has also held various positions and responsibilities for UNDP and the UN system, serving in a number of African countries and in Geneva, in areas covering development planning, capacity building, decentralization and democratic governance.
Before joining the UN system, Mr. Nyambi worked in his home country of Cameroon within the Ministry of Economic Development. He holds a Masters in Development Economics and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics.
He also holds a number of prestigious awards, including a Martin Luther King Scholar.
On Wednesday he met with media practitioners, artists and representatives of the Sierra Leone amputee football team at the Bambu Hut at Wilkinson Road where he disclosed UNDP’s plans to support the upcoming local government elections.
“We will support and help in the promotion of no violence [during the local government elections] through artists programmes presentations.
There are other related activities that will be supported too, under the overall theme of promoting non-violence in the elections.
There is some funding we are going to make available for that,” disclosed Mr Nyambi
ADVERTISEMENT