Amina banks on diplomatic career to beat rivals in top Africa Union job race

She is bold, the type that cannot be intimidated easily. She can go to any lengths defending not only her position, but that of her country too. That is Kenya’s Foreign Affairs secretary Amina Mohamed.

In October, in an interview with Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan, one of the journalists known for asking hard questions to his subjects, Ms Mohamed gave the host a hard time by refusing to give a Yes or No response when she was hard pressed on Kenya’s runaway corruption.

A career diplomat, Ms Mohamed can boast of a proactive foreign affairs involvement that saw her lobby for Nairobi to host top-notch conferences, some of which were held in Africa for the first time.

Ms Mohamed is credited with using her old networks at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to lobby the continental body to hold its 10th Ministerial Conference in Nairobi last December.

The Nairobi conference helped to break the trade negotiation deadlock with the African group recording crucial gains in their push for elimination of agricultural subsidies. The stalemate had lasted more than one decade.

In July, Kenya hosted the 14th United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, becoming the first African country to host the event twice in 40 years.

Ms Mohamed has also been credited with lobbying the Sixth Session of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development out of Japan, ensuring Nairobi hosted it in August.

Early this week, she pulled a surprise by visiting Saharawi, a Western Sahara state that is claimed by its neighbour Morocco.

The move places Kenya at the risk of sparking diplomatic spat with Morocco and other Arab states after it supported the African Union (AU) membership of Saharawi, which the northern African country does not recognise as an independent state.

Ms Mohamed on Sunday said Kenya supports Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic’s quest for full self-determination and its membership to the AU.

Last month, Arab countries, including Morocco, which is not a member of the AU, pulled out from the 4th Arab-African Summit in Equatorial Guinea, in protest against the participation of the Western Sahara state.

The countries that withdrew from the summit in solidarity with Morocco included Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Sultanate of Oman, Jordan, Yemen and Somalia.

Her visit to Saharawi comes just a few weeks after President Uhuru Kenyatta’s visit in Morocco last month where he met with the leader of Morocco on the sidelines of the climate change conference in Marrakech.

Ms Mohamed’s visit to Saharawi was strategic. She is seeking support for her candidature as the chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC).

In the coming month, the focus will be on her as she joins candidates from other countries who are vying the top continental job.

She is banking on her diplomatic career in the past to argue her case as the most suitable candidate of all.

Ms Mohamed is a committed international civil servant who has had a distinguished career in both public and foreign service. She has served in strategic government positions and been elected to key international ones.

Her work experience spanning more than 26 years covers a broad spectrum of domestic and international assignments.

She rose through the ranks in Kenya’s diplomatic service to the highest level of ambassador/permanent representative of the Kenya Mission to the UN at Geneva from 2000-2006.

In nominating her in October, Mr Kenyatta noted that Kenya had benefited from her regional and international engagements.

“I see that Amina is doing well and this looks like an Amina thing,” Mr Kenyatta said at the State House in October.

“Ambassador Mohamed has steered our diplomatic engagement to greater heights. We have benefited tremendously from regional and international engagements of national and continental significance,” he said.

Ms Mohamed’s candidature follows the unsuccessful AUC elections that had been planned for July but were suspended after none of the three contenders obtained the requisite two-thirds majority.

She is expected to join other candidates in a debate today in Addis Ababa to promote her agenda for Africa. Her candidature has attracted mixed feelings from the continent with some pundits arguing that Kenya is not the right country for the seat.

Dr Remember Miamingi, an international expert at University of Pretoria, says that in the past few years, the African Union has made great strides in strengthening the continent’s ability to confront its numerous political, economic, social, environmental and security challenges.

Dr Miamingi says these achievements are likely to be jeopardised if the Kenyan Foreign minister becomes the next AUC chairperson.

“By all accounts she is a capable and respected diplomat. It’s because of the country Amina represents,” says Remember Miamingi, an international human rights expert at the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria.

In his column in the East African newspaper, Dr Miamingi says recent events - such as spat with the UN over the sacking of its commander in South Sudan Lt-Gen Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki — suggest that the Kenyan government is insufficiently committed to internationalism and could use Ms Mohamed to influence the commission in ways that would harm the interests of the rest of the continent, and the world at large.

“Of greatest concern is Kenya’s reaction to the conflict in South Sudan in July and its aftermath,” said Dr Miamingi.

Incidentally, Ms Mohamed may currently be quite busy or may not be willing to speak to the media. She neither picked our calls nor responded to SMSs over a period of several days during which the Business Daily attempted to reach her.

Ms Mohamed has served as United Nations Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi.