NEW YORK – United Nations Secretary General António Guterres has appointed Raouf Mazou of the Congo as assistant secretary general to serve as assistant high commissioner for operations, office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Mazou will succeed George Okoth-Obbo of Uganda who has been appointed as secretary to the high-level panel on internal displacement, the UN said in a statement.
“The secretary general and the high commissioner for refugees are grateful for Mr Okoth-Obbo’s 36 years of dedicated service to the refugee cause, including five years as assistant high commissioner for operations,” the statement said.
Mazou brought to the position some 28 years of professional experience with the UNHCR, having served in a range of functions across the organisation, including in a series of relevant senior leadership roles at headquarters and in a range of field operations.
These included overseeing the UNHCR’s global emergency preparedness and response operations, security management, and more recently, playing a pivotal role in the UNHCR’s regionalisation process as director of the regional bureau for Africa, overseeing the transition of one headquarters-based Africa bureau at headquarters, to three field-based bureaux. Mazou served as UNHCR representative in Kenya from 2013 to 2018.