UN Secretary-General António Guterres announced on Tuesday 22 February the appointment of Hanna Serwaa Tetteh of Ghana as his Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa. She succeeds Parfait Onanga-Anyanga of Gabon, who has been appointed Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General to the African Union (AU) and head of the UN office to the AU. The Horn of Africa refers strictly to the region occupied by four states: Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Hanna Serwaa Tetteh, says the UN, brings to her new position decades of experience at the national, regional and international levels, including proven skills in building consensus among stakeholders, which she will use to strengthen the partnership between the UN, the countries of the Horn of Africa and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in the area of peace and security.
Since 2019, Hanna Serwaa Tetteh has been the Special Representative of the Secretary-General to the African Union and Head of the United Nations Office to the Continental Organization (UNOWA). Prior to that, she was Director-General of the United Nations Office in Nairobi.
Ministerial positions in Ghana
Hanna Serwaa Tetteh has also served as Ghana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, during which time she was a member of the National Security Council and the Armed Forces Council from 2013 to 2017, after serving as Minister of Trade and Industry from 2009 to 2013.
Between 2014 and 2015, Hanna Serwaa Tetteh was President of the Council of Ministers and Chairperson of the Mediation and Security Council of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). As Minister of Trade and Industry, she served on the Government of Ghana’s Economic Management Team, the Board of Directors of the Millennium Development Authority and the National Development Planning Commission. She also chaired the Ghana Free Trade Area Board.
Influential NDC figure
A member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), a political party founded by former president Jerry Rawlings, Hanna Serwaa Tetteh served in Ghana’s parliament from 2000 to 2005, and again from 2013 to 2017. She co-facilitated the high-level forum for the revitalisation of the South Sudan Conflict Resolution Agreement between 2017 and 2018.
She was elected as a member of the National Congress Bureau in 2005 and in 2008, she was appointed as the National Communications Director of the NDC, replacing John Dramani Mahama, who became Ghana’s vice presidential candidate on behalf of the NDC, while the country’s presidency was being contested by John Atta Mills on behalf of the NDC. Her role during the 2008 presidential campaign, including managing the party’s communication strategy for that election, made her a more prominent political figure and she became one of the NDC’s mainspokespersons.
Spokesperson for the transition team
After the NDC’s victory in the 2008 elections, Hanna Tetteh became the spokesperson for the newly elected government as the process of appointing new members continued. She was therefore the spokesperson for the transition team of former President John Evans Atta Mills.
When John Mahama succeeded the late President Atta Mills in 2012, he also appointed Hanna Tetteh as his Communications Director for his 2012 election campaign. She also ran again for a parliamentary seat and was elected to the new Awutu Senya West constituency seat in the December 2012 election.
Born on 31 May 1967 in Szeged, Hungary, to a Ghanaian father and a Hungarian mother, Hanna Tetteh, 55, holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Ghana and has been a member of the Ghanaian Bar Association, since October 1992. In addition to English, she is fluent in Fante and Hungarian.
