The Special Adviser on Africa to the United Nations Secretary-General, Under-Secretary-General Cristina Duarte, has been officially sworn into office by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Ms. Duarte took her oath of office at a virtual ceremony in New York on 3 February 2021.
She is the sixth head of the UN Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (OSAA) since its inception in 2003. USG Duarte was appointed to the position in August 2020 and took over from former Special Adviser Bience Gawanas.
Ms. Duarte’s career spans over three decades of leadership and strategic management in public policy making and in the private sector. She has been championing the need for a reboot in policy making in Africa, particularly on financing for development, leveraging the power of technology and digitization for Africa’s growth, promoting governance and domestic resource mobilization as the key tools for Africa’s empowerment and putting human capital at the center of policymaking.
Ms. Duarte served as the Minister of Finance and Planning in the Republic of Cabo Verde from 2006 to 2016, among other positions. In the private sector, she rose to become Vice President of Citibank, an international financial institution. Ms. Duarte is committed to public service and has global recognition of working well with a wide range of senior decision-makers both in government and in business around the world.
Prior to being appointed as Special Adviser, Ms. Duarte was the Director of a World Bank project on private sector development and competitiveness.
She holds a Master’s degree in International Management from the American Graduate School of International Management/Thunderbird School of Global Management, an Advanced Diploma in Business Administration from the Economics Institute of the University of Colorado and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Public Policies, Planning and Development from the Instituto Superior de Economia in Lisbon, Portugal.
Due to the social distancing measures put in place after the COVID-19 outbreak, in-person swearing-in ceremonies have been temporarily suspended. This was the first swearing-in ceremony to take place virtually.