SPC names new Deputy Director-General

Press Release

SPC names new Deputy Director-General

Wednesday 25 October, 2006, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Noumea, New Caledonia – The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) has named Mr Richard Mann as its new Deputy Director-General. Mr Mann has worked in the Pacific region since 1990. He joined SPC in 1998 to establish and run its Planning Unit, following United Nations assignments in Vanuatu and a period as director of the University of the South Pacific’s Planning and Development Office in Suva, Fiji.

As SPC’s Noumea-based Deputy Director-General, Mr Mann will oversee the Social Resources Division, which includes SPC’s human development, public health, and statistics and demography programmes, and its support services (translation and interpretation, library, publications, information technology, corporate planning and communication). He will also have special responsibility for the Secretariat’s relationships with the Government of France and the French territories.

“I’m honoured by the trust and confidence that the Director-General of SPC, Dr Jimmie Rodgers, and members of the Pacific Community have placed in me,” says Richard Mann. “The position of Deputy Director-General in Noumea holds exciting professional and personal challenges. My priority will be to help Pacific Island countries and territories position themselves in an increasingly complex environment, through the assistance of the programmes of the Social Resources Division. I fully support the organisation’s commitment to ensuring that SPC continues to provide pragmatic and relevant services to its island members and maintains its reputation as a provider of high-quality, practical technical assistance and sectoral policy advice.”

Mr Mann has an economics and business degree and attended universities in France and Germany. His main areas of professional expertise are general management, corporate and strategic planning, and project and programme design, review and evaluation.

Mr Mann is originally from Germany. His wife Marie-Pierre is from Vanuatu and they have two young children, Audrey and Lucas.

ENDS

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