Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Raychelle Omamo lost her bid to become the next International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad) president to Alvaro Lario of Spain.
Lario succeeds former Togo Prime Minister Gilbert Houngbo, who became the sixth Ifad president on April 1, 2017. He will take office on October 1 for a four-year term.
Speaking after his appointment, Lario said he was up to the task and prepared to work with member states to build resilience and enhance public-private partnerships in enhancing Ifad’s agenda.
“The private sector is very key to providing job opportunities among the women and the youth. We will scale up three or four times the partnership we have with the youth,” Lario said.
The new president noted that issues of migration, conflict and climate change are affecting many rural farmers.
Before his appointment, he had worked as Ifad’s chief financial officer and an associate vice-president for financial operations since 2018.
Omamo would have become the first woman to lead the United Nation agency, the first Kenyan and the third African.
She was nominated by President Uhuru Kenyatta in May.
In his nomination letter, Kenyatta said Omamo would bring to Ifad her experience in strategic management, policy making, institution and partnership building as well as financial stewardship.
Under her leadership, Omamo had promised that Ifad would deepen and enhance its contributions and increase its effectiveness in the international aid architecture.
“This is by strengthening its advocacy in favour of rural poor through innovative and intensive stakeholder engagement and affirm its position as the “partner of choice” in the area of rural agricultural development,” she said.
Other than Lario, Omamo faced Khalid Mahdi from Kuwait and Shobhana Kumar of India.