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Ms Chiriga

Lovemore Mataire Senior Reporter
A Zimbabwean academic and a former official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ms Jennifer Susan Chiriga, has been appointed to the position of new chief of staff at the African Union.

A statement posted on the African Union website said the chairperson of the AU Commission, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, appointed Ms Chiriga as the chief of staff while former South African ambassador to Poland Febe Potgieter-Gqubule becomes deputy chief of staff in the bureau of the chairperson.

“Ms Jennifer Chiriga takes over from Amb Jean Baptiste Natama who resigned in February 2015. She has been acting chief of staff since March 2015. Ms Chiriga was the deputy chief of staff since June 2014,” read the statement.

Ms Chiriga’s deputy, Ambassador Potgieter-Gqubule, has since October 2012 been the advisor for Strategy and Planning to the AU Commission chair- person.

The appointments are in line with Dr Dlamini-Zuma’s commitment to promote women in the management of the AU Commission.

Ms Chiriga is a holder of a BSc in Politics and Administration and an MA in Policy Studies through a joint programme of the University of Zimbabwe and the University of Fort Hare.

She has over 20 years of work experience in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Zimbabwe as a desk officer, through the development arena and has also worked in the non-governmental organisation sector as a programme administrator. She is also the former executive director of the African Forum on Debt and Development, a pan-African NGO.

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 Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), based in New York, US.