UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced the appointment of Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed of Mauritania as his new Special Representative and Head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER).
The newly appointed, at the Undersecretary Level, is to work closely with the Special Envoy on Ebola, David Nabarro, and with the governments in the region and other partners.
Ould Cheikh Ahmed succeeds Anthony Banbury of the United States, who will return to New York in early January 2015. Ban expressed his gratitude to Banbury for his vision and leadership of UNMEER, and for his commitment to fighting this unprecedented Ebola outbreak, his press office said.
Bringing more than 28 years of development and humanitarian assistance experience with the United Nations in Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, Ould Cheikh Ahmed is currently Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General and Deputy Head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), United Nations Resident Coordinator, Humanitarian Coordinator and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Resident Representative.