ISSUE 48/DEC2022 - Flipbook - Page 46
Africa’s Most Influential Women | EVERYDAY HEROES
Ahunna Eziakonwa
NIGERIA
Assistant Secretary General and Regional Director — UNDP Africa
PUBLIC SERVICE: Development Practitioner
As nominations for our list poured in over a period
of 6 months, one nominator’s explanatory comment
as to why they were submitting Ahunna’s name,
particularly stood out. She tendered:
“Ahunna is an outstanding leader driving the face
of a new Africa. Her leadership at UNDP Africa has
transformed the narrative — setting aside approaches
that situate Africa as a place that requires fixing and
rather channel development resources into investing
in the promise of Africa; In unlocking its assets for
Africa’s people; In opening conversations about how
Africa’s money can work for Africa’s development.
Her bold leadership style is changing mindsets,
empowering Africans and development practitioners
to accept that there is another way — of an Africa
beyond aid.”
And we cannot put it any better than that.
Ahunna has been UNDP Assistant Administrator and
Director of the Regional Bureau for Africa (RBA)
since 2018. She also serves at the rank of Assistant
Secretary General.
A leading development and humanitarian specialist
for over 20 years, Ahunna leads an over 1.2 billion
US dollar annual development programme for
Sub Saharan Africa, and a team in 46 countries
supporting African governments to remove structural
impediments to sustainable development.
Her vision for Africa is captured in the document:
“Africa’s Promise: The UNDP Renewed Strategic
Offer in Africa” which applies the opportunity lens
to Africa’s development trajectory, and the RBA’s
regional and country teams which she leads, are
actively working with global and regional partners,
to apply this new dispensation to development
programming.
In her role, Ahunna has established innovative
initiatives such as the Africa Influencers for
Development (AI4Dev) — a powerful coalition of
leaders in business, academia and the arts, steering
Africa’s development agenda to ensure a future out
46 l
New African Woman
l Dec 2022
|
Afro-optimist
of dependency and beyond aid by seeing that Africa’s
money works for African development.
She is passionate about mobilizing partnerships to
invest in youth entrepreneurs. Her brainchild, the
Africa Young Women Leaders — a joint initiative
with the African Union Commission, unleashed an
outstanding corps of women leaders who are now
driving change in their communities across Africa and
the globe. Ahunna also provides technical leadership
to both the UNDP Africa and the UN system-wide
socioeconomic response and recovery on COVID 19 in
Africa.
Additionally, she co-chairs the UN Africa Regional
Collaborative Platform - a body embracing the
collective power of Agency, Funds and Programmes
with the Regional Economic Commission — and
effectively implementing the Secretary General’s
vision of UN reforms. This entails optimizing regional
assets to offer a stronger value proposition to Africa.
She is a graduate of Columbia University’s School of
International and Public Affairs where she attained
a Masters of International Affairs with a focus on
Economic and Political Development in Africa. She
is also an alumni of the Harvard Kennedy School
Executive Programme where she got specialized
training on cutting edge development thinking. Her
core training is in Education with a Bachelor’s degree
from University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria.
“
■
Ahunna leads an over $1.2bn annual
development programme for Sub Saharan
Africa, and a team in 46 countries supporting
African governments to remove structural
impediments to sustainable development.