United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appointed Diene Keita of Guinea as Assistant Secretary-General to serve as the Deputy Executive Director, Programme of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Ms. Keita succeeds Dereje Wordofa of Ethiopia, to whom the Secretary-General and the Executive Director of UNFPA are grateful for his dedicated service to UNFPA.
Ms. Diene Keita, who recently served as Minister for Cooperation and African Integration with the Republic of Guinea, brings to the position nearly 30 years of experience within the United Nations System. She started her United Nations career in 1990 with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in New York as Programme Officer, and from this point held various successful programmatic leadership positions at country level, serving as UNDP Deputy Representative and Acting Representative for several years.
Ms. Keita joined UNFPA in 2006 as Representative in Mauritania, and thereafter served in representative positions in Benin, as well as in DRC and Nigeria (two of UNFPA’s largest programmes globally) before joining the Guinean Government as a Cabinet Minister in 2018. During this time, Ms. Keita successfully led large and complex public health programmes, expanded strategic partnerships and mobilized critical resources to support delivery. While serving with UNFPA, Ms. Keita also acted as United Nations Resident Coordinator in Mauritania, Benin and DRC where she oversaw the United Nations system at the national level. All throughout her career, Ms. Keita has worked extensively on the empowerment of women and youth, inclusive growth, demographic issues, sustainable human development, addressing sexual and reproductive health, as well as gender-based violence in humanitarian settings.
Ms. Keita, who is a fluent in French and Italian, holds a doctorate in Law, a DEA in International Economics and Development Law and a DESS in International Relations from the University of Paris 1 Sorbonne. Ms. Keita is married and the mother of a young adult.