Claver Gatete has replaced Vera Songwe who, in August 2022, resigned from the position of Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). Songwe, a celebrated Cameroonian economist, had also been the United Nations Under-Secretary-General. The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday, October 6, appointed Rwanda’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Amb. Gatete, to lead UNECA. Antonio Maria Afonso Pedro, a Mozambican mineral exploration geologist had been the Acting Executive Secretary since September 2022. ALSO READ: Vera Songwe steps down as UNECA boss ALSO READ: Senate approves Gatete as Rwanda’s envoy to UN Gatete, a seasoned economist, brings to the position extensive strategic leadership expertise, coupled with international experience in the political and financial landscape of the African continent, Guterres’s office said in a statement. The newly appointed UNECA boss served in senior positions in the Rwandan government, notably as Minister of Infrastructure from 2018 to 2022 and Minister of Finance and Economic Planning from 2013 to 2018. Gatete also served as Governor and Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Rwanda, and Secretary General and Secretary to the Treasury at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning in Rwanda. ALSO READ: Profile: Central bank Governor Gatete: a diplomat, economist and family man He was Director General for Economic and Social Affairs in the Office of the President of Rwanda between 2000 and 2003, during which he served as the President’s Representative to the New Partnership for Africa’s Development and Coordinator of the National African Peer Review Mechanism. Gatete began his diplomatic career in 2005 and was based in London until 2009 as Rwanda’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Iceland. Prior to this, he served as National Economist of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Kigali and Economist of Agriculture and Agri-Food and of Statistics Canada, in Ottawa, Canada. Gatete holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in agricultural economics from the University of British Columbia in Canada.
