Ahmedou Ould Abdallah

New York, September 07, 2007 - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon intended to name Ahmedou Ould Abdallah as his Special Representative for Somalia, UN spokesperson Michele Montas said Thursday.

Montas told reporters at the UN Headquarters in New York that Ban, in a recent exchange of letters with the Security Council, proposed that Abdallah, who currently heads the UN Office in West Africa, be appointed as his Special Representative for Somalia.

The current Special Representative in Somalia, Francois Lonseny Fall, would be reassigned to head the UN Peacebuilding Support Office in the Central African Republic, she said, adding that the head of that office, General Lamine Cisse would be temporarily reassigned as officer-in-charge of the UN Office in West Africa.

These are changes aimed at ensuring that the United Nations is doing its utmost to rise to a number of challenges and opportunities it faces in several key arenas in Africa, particularly Somalia and the Central African Republic, the spokesperson claimed.

Source: Xinhua