Celebrated Kenyan diplomat Ambassador Martin Kimani has been appointed Executive Director of the Center on International Cooperation effective June 3, 2024.
Ambassador Kimani, who is the outgoing Kenyan Permanent Representative to the UN since December 2020 is an accomplished diplomat and organizational leader, whom CIC says will bring “exceptional global peace, security, and development expertise” to the organization.
Reacting to the appointment, Kimani said it is a profound honor to join NYU’s Center on International Cooperation, an institution recognized for its significant contributions worldwide.
“Assuming leadership of the CIC at this crucial time is a privilege, as we stand at the crossroads of global challenges that demand robust, ambitious multilateral cooperation.
“I extend my deepest thanks to NYU and all involved for entrusting me with the opportunity to draw upon CIC’s expertise to develop innovative solutions and pursue meaningful change on a global scale,” Ambassador Kimani said.
His predecessor in the position Sarah Cliffe noted that Amb Kimani brings many years of experience in international diplomacy, crisis prevention, and the links between peace, justice, equality, and inclusion at the highest level.
“His ability to build bridges and identify strategic opportunities to strengthen multilateral action will be a great benefit to CIC, the United Nations, and the International Financial Institutions in the current period of high geopolitical tension,” Cliffe said.
Amb Kimani caught international attention with his speech at the UN following the Russia Invasion of Ukraine.
In his speech that went viral, Kimani invoked Kenya’s struggle for independence from the British to castigate Russia’s attempts to reconstitute its own empire and urge the world to renew its commitment to seeking peace and security through multilateralism.
“This situation echoes our history. Kenya and almost every African country was birthed by the ending of empire.
“Our borders were not of our own drawing. They were drawn in the distant colonial metropoles of London, Paris and Lisbon, with no regard for the ancient nations that they cleaved apart,” Kimani said at the UN Security Council.
In Slamming Russia, the Kenyan envoy said that all states formed from empires that have collapsed or retreated have many peoples in them yearning for integration with peoples in neighboring states, but Kenya rejects such a yearning from being pursued by force.
“”We must complete our recovery from the embers of dead empires in a way that does not plunge us back into new forms of domination and oppression,” he said.
In this role at the UN, Kimani represented Kenya in the Security Council, serving as its President in October 2021, and chaired the Executive Board of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN Population Fund (UNFPA), and UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS).
In President William Ruto’s recent diplomatic changes, Kimani will be succeeded by former Turkana speaker and lawyer Erasts Lokaale, who has also worked in UN system, as the PR.
PAST ROLES
Prior, he served Kenya as Special Envoy for Countering Violent Extremism as the Director of the National Counter Terrorism Centre in Nairobi.
“He made important contributions to securing peace and security in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and supported a successful initiative to accelerate East African Community integration. He has also served as the Permanent Representative to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat).
“As Director of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development’s (IGAD) Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism, he led cross-border conflict prevention and resolution efforts in the Horn of Africa,” CIC said in a statement.
Ambassador Kimani is a fellow of the African Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
He holds a PhD in War Studies from King’s College London, where under under the supervision of Sir Lawrence Freedman undertook his thesis on the role of the Catholic Church, Christian symbolism and racialism in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
In 2028, he was appointed by President Uhuru Kenyatta Secretary of Strategic Initiatives within the Executive Office of the President
CIC, a nonprofit research center within Arts and Science at NYU, is a prominent advocate for international cooperation to prevent crises and promote peace, justice, and inclusion and a leading global think tank on multilateralism.
Ambassador Kimani’s appointment heralds a new era of innovation to produce practical, principled, and evidence-based action to address the world’s most pressing challenges, it said in the March 18 statement.
Jean-Marie Guéhenno, former UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations [2000-2008] and a member of CIC’s Advisory Group, said he was delighted about Ambassador Kimani’s appointment as the next director of CIC.
“His vast and diverse experience, coupled with his exceptional leadership qualities, make him a perfect match for one of the preeminent research centers serving multilateral institutions,” Guéhenno.
Cliffe will remain as a Distinguished Fellow at CIC alongside other former Executive Directors.
