Press Release Nº146/2014

AUC Chairperson appoints new Deputy Chief of Staff, Bureau of the Chairperson

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 17 June 2014: The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, H.E. Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma has appointed Ms. Jennifer Susan Chiriga as the new Deputy Chief of Staff in the Bureau of the Chairperson. Ms. Chiriga replaces Dr. Hesphina Rukato.

Before her appointment as Deputy Chief of Staff, she was a Program Expert in the Strategic Policy Planning Monitoring Evaluation and Resource Mobilisation Directorate, responsible for the project management operations of one of the AU Commission’s capacity building programmes funded by the Africa Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF). She was instrumental in building relations and forging a strong partnership between the Commission and ACBF, and in mobilising additional resources for the continuation of the capacity building programme.

A national of Zimbabwe, Ms. Jennifer Susan Chiriga, has a BSc in Politics and Administration from the University of Zimbabwe and an MA in Policy Studies through a joint programme of the University of Zimbabwe and University of Fort Hare. She has over 25 years of accumulated work experience across the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Zimbabwe, through the development arena, specifically in the NGO sector as a manager in programme administration and management, as well as in policy design and application. She is a former Executive Director of the African Forum on Debt and Development (AFRODAD), a pan-African NGO; she has executive management experience and has worked extensively on civil society capacity-building strategies.

Ms Chiriga has a broad spread of international experience. She was awarded a fellowship on the Africa–Asia Transitional Justice Fellowship Programme, an internationally recognised programme run jointly by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) in South Africa and the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), based in New York. She worked briefly with the Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR) a Cape Town based organisation that works on regional and continental issues. Her experience also includes the development of conflict management training materials and the organisation of high level conflict management training courses for senior government officials.

Jacob Enoh Eben
Ag. Spokesperson of the Chairperson