abdoulie janneh is the former united nations executive secretary of the economic commission for africa eca he was appointed to the position by united nations secretarygeneral kofi annan in september 2005 janneh is an active player in promoting african development and responding to the continents national and regional priorities throughout his career he has been an active player in enhancing partnershipbuilding for africa aiming to mobilize support and build inclusiveness for shared development objectives he has established and maintained high level partnership with programme and donor governments the private sector civil society and national regional and international organizations he has also written articles on african development and delivered policy statements and keynote speeches he was member of several advisory panels of organizations on africas development he started his career at the united nations development programme as a development planner in 1979 over the years he has risen to become a senior manager both in the undp and its affiliated funds including resident coordinator and resident representative in ghana 19961999 and niger 19931996 and deputy executive secretary of the united nations capital development fund 19901993under his guidance the undp bureau for africa has contributed greatly to promoting good governance the fight against hivaids economic reform fair trade poverty eradication and crisis prevention he also pays special attention to issues such as the institutional transformation of the african union and the successful implementation of the new partnership for africas development nepad he has played a critical role in strategy and policysetting in undp and had spearheaded institutional change and development in the organization in 1999 he led the transition team of the former undp administrator mark malloch brown from 2000 to 2007 janneh served as assistant secretarygeneral and undp regional director for africa in charge of managing undps largest regional bureau covering 45 countries in subsaharan africa with a complement of over 1500 staff he obtained a master of arts degree in urban and regional planning studies from the university of nottingham in england he is also a graduate of engineering science from fourah bay college sierra leone and undertook postgraduate studies in project planning and appraisal at the university of bradford in england