25 January 2012: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has announced the upcoming departures of three members of his Senior Management Group. Asha-Rose Migiro, Deputy Secretary-General, Vijay Nambiar, Chef de Cabinet, and Angela Kane, Under-Secretary-General for Management, will step down.

Ban announced the decisions during a special press conference on his plan of action for the next five years, held on 25 January 2012, at UN Headquarters, in New York, US.

Migiro will continue in her post until the end of June 2012, to avoid disrupting preparations for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20), Ban said. Migiro, formerly the Foreign Minister of Tanzania, was appointed 5 January 2006, replacing Mark Malloch Brown of the UK, the Deputy Secretary-General under Kofi Annan.

Nambiar’s timeline for leaving his post as Chef de Cabinet was not specified. Following the transition, Nambiar will serve as Ban’s Special Advisor on Myanmar (Burma), according to Ban. Nambiar, formerly an Indian diplomat, was appointed on Ban’s first day as Secretary-General, 1 January 2006, replacing Alicia Barcena Ibarra of Mexico.

Angela Kane, of Germany, appointed in 2008, will leave her post sometime this year, he said.

Upon completing his high-level appointments after taking office in 2006, Ban expressed his intention to limit the appointments to a maximum of five years. At the end of his first term on 1 December 2011, he announced that he would “build a new team,” focusing on replacing senior advisors at the five-year mark. He said he would seek nominations for several Under-Secretary-General positions, and expressed his commitment to an inclusive and objective selection process. Those currently holding these positions will leave during the first half of 2012, except where they are involved in preparations for the UNCSD, which takes place in June 2012, or in consideration of other factors.

The USG positions include: Department of Public Information (Kiyo Akasaka); Department of Economic and Social Affairs (Sha Zukang); Office of the Special Adviser for Africa (Cheick Sidi Diarra); Economic Commission for Africa (Abdoulie Janneh); and Economic Commission for Europe (Ján Kubiš).

Providing an update on this process in his statement on 25 January 2012, Ban said search and appointment efforts have begun to fill these and other positions. He said the selections “will proceed in a transparent and competitive manner, based on merit, while taking geographical and gender balance into account.” [UN Press Release] [Transcript of Briefing] [Senior Management Group Appointments, August 2007] [Statement on Building New Team, 1 December 2011]