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The Foreign Ministry of Kenya

Monica Juma

Minister of Foreign Affairs

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Ambassador Monica Juma, DPhil, CBS, is the Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. She has been the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from January 12, 2016. Prior to this, she was the Principal Secretary at the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government.

Formerly, she served as Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Defence. Prior to these two portfolios, Dr Juma served as Ambassador Extra-Ordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the Republic of Djibouti and Permanent Representative of Kenya to the African Union, Inter-Government Authority on Development (IGAD) and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), based out of Addis Ababa.

Amb Juma’s career spans a wide range of posts and responsibilities within the country, continentally and internationally. She has served with numerous Governments and Inter-Governmental Organisations, on the United Nations Secretary General`s High-Level Panel on resourcing for the United Nations Security Council`s mandated Africa Union peacekeeping operations; (2008) and led teams that developed seminal peace and security policy documents in Africa. She continues to serve on many boards, including on the International Advisory Board for the United Nations University for Peace headquartered in Costa Rica, the Training for Peace Programme, and the African Governance Institute.

Amb Juma holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Oxford, Master of Arts (MA) and Bachelor of Arts (BA) from the University of Nairobi, and Certificate in Refugees Studies from Oxford. She is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Political Science, University of Pretoria (South Africa); and an Adjunct Faculty member at the African Center for Strategic Studies of the National Defence University, Washington D.C. (United States of America).

She is an author to numerous publications including the Compendium on Peace and Security, articles in refereed journals, chapters in edited books, commissioned reports, monographs and opinion pieces on issues of peace, security and governance. Ambassador Juma is married and mother of two children.