Martin Kimani

Martin Kimani (born 1971) is a Kenyan government official and diplomat.He previously served as Kenya's Permanent Representative to the United Nations since December 2020.He previously served as the Director of the National Counter Terrorism Centre and as a Special Envoy for Countering Violent Extremism in Kenya Quotes Well, I'm taking over from an amazing diplomat called June Soomer, and she has served with distinction in the last year. One of my immediate priorities is to try and match her levels of energy in terms of engaging with different activist groups and governments, and to take the agenda forward. So, I have to be a great listener this year. I have to engage with our stakeholders in Africa, in the Caribbean, here in the United States, and everywhere there are large populations of people of African descent. And finally, a priority will be how to connect Africa more closely to its diaspora. And this will be building on work that I’ve done throughout my career. But this is a different Forum, and trying to find deeper, practical acts of solidarity between Africans and people of African descent is going to be at the top of my agenda. Well, this has always been the challenge. But, without going into it at great length, I think to be African and to identify as African is an act of solidarity. The paths to being African are so different. The paths that I’ve traveled to that word "African," from Nairobi to that idea of myself as African—the paths a Nigerian or Jamaican or an American travel to that word—are paths built on solidarity and common purpose. External links Category: Living people