NDC Europe Congratulates Dr. Ibn Chambas

NDC Europe extends its congratulations to Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas, current head of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), as the new Secretary General of the Brussels-based Secretariat of the 79-strong group of African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) nations.

The announcement of his appointment was made on 17 November after an ACP Council of Ministers meeting in Brussels adopted the recommendation of the Council’s Bureau to appoint Dr. Chambas. He will take office on March 1, 2010, replacing incumbent Sir John Kaputin from Papua New Guinea.

NDC Europe believes that at a crucial time for the ACP Group which requires firm leadership in the face of challenges to its unity in view of the various regional trade packages the EC is concluding with individual African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) regions, that Dr Chambas will take into consideration the new changes of the global politics to bring equity and fairness to the ACP Regions. Dr Chambas was the selected choice of candidate for the post in competition with Cape Verde’s current Ambassador the EC, Fernando Wahnon Ferreira and The Gambia’s former Ambassador to the EC, Alieu Ngum. Dr Chambras is multi-skilled having previously held posts as a lawyer, diplomat, politician and academic. He has degrees in Political Science from the University of Ghana, Legon and Cornell University Ithaca, New York (MA 1977, Phd 1980) and a law degree from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.

He has previously worked in teaching positions in the United States and practiced law with the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland (US) before returning to Ghana where he became a schools administrator. In 1987, he became Ghana’s Deputy Foreign Secretary.

He served as Member of Parliament for Bimbilla (Ghana), 1993-1996, for the National Democratic Congress party and between 1993-1994, he chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee in Parliament. He became a mediator between warring parties of the Liberian Civil War of the 1990s and subsequently the Ivorian Civil War. He lost his seat in Ghana’s parliament in 1996 but returned to government as Deputy Minister of Education 1997, a post he held until 2000.

On regaining his parliamentary seat in 2000, he worked with in Parliament to facilitate the transition to constitutional government in Nigeria, Sierra Leone and The Gambia.

He was elected as Executive Secretary of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the West African regional body pushing for greater political and economic integration. In 2007, he was chosen by member governments of ECOWAS to become the first President of the ECOWAS Commission for a four-year term beginning 1 January 2007, a mandate he will now not complete in view of his new position.

We NDC Members in Europe wish Dr Ibn Chambas a very warm welcome to Europe and all the best in his new Office. Source: NDC Europe News