US think-tank taps Kenya's outgoing UN envoy Martin Kimani

A top New York think-tank has hired Kenya’s outgoing Permanent Representative to the UN as its next boss.

Dr Martin Kimani will become the next Executive Director for the Center on International Cooperation (CIC), a non-profit research centre at the New York University (NYU). He will start his new duties on June 3 this year, according to a dispatch from the Centre.

It closes a chapter on a diplomat who has been largely respected within Kenya and abroad. President William RUTO nominated former Turkana County Speaker Erastus Lokaale as his replacement in New York. But he needs to be vetted by parliament first before formally reporting to duty, something that could take up to two months. Kimani will not formally leave his post as envoy until his successor is ready.

Dr Kimani had been a Permanent Representative to the UN since December 2020 and is remembered for the rousing speech at the UN Security Council when Russia launched war on Ukraine in February 2022. At the time, Kenya was a non-permanent member of the Council.

“We must complete our recovery from the embers of dead empires in a way that does not plunge us back into new forms of domination and oppression,” Dr Kimani said on February 21, 2022.