29 Nov. - 5 Dec. 2001
Issue No.562
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 29 Nov. - 5 Dec. 2001 Issue No.562 |
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Woman at the top
Fayza Abul-Naga has become the first woman diplomat to reach the highest echelons of her profession. Dina Ezzat reports
After nine months of speculation, career diplomat Fayza Abul-Naga has been appointed minister of state for foreign affairs.
A limited cabinet shuffle yielded Fayza Abul-Naga as the first female minister of foreign affairs
Ambassador Abul-Naga's name was first forwarded for the job on 15 February when Amr Moussa, then foreign minister, was officially nominated as secretary-general of the Arab League. At the time, Abul- Naga's name was suggested as a potential new minister of state for foreign affairs. But Abul-Naga, who was in Cairo at the time for a meeting with President Hosni Mubarak, soon returned to Switzerland where she had been heading Egypt's permanent mission to the Geneva- based UN organisations for over a year.
Nine months on, Abul-Naga received a presidential summons at her office on Geneva's Avenue Blanc. She soon found herself in Heliopolis, where she was sworn in as the first woman state minister for foreign affairs.
The job is familiar territory for Abul-Naga. She was an immediate aide to Boutros Boutros Ghali, who held the post until 1991 when he went to New York as UN secretary- general. After Ghali's departure, the post itself was scrapped for a period of 10 years during which Amr Moussa ran the foreign ministry single-handedly.
The cabinet job has been reintroduced -- and Abul-Naga has already got plans for it. The newly appointed state minister for foreign affairs believes that her efforts are particularly needed in terms of Egyptian-African relations. Egypt's relations with Latin America and other Third World countries are also a priority for her. She will, moreover, be focusing on the economy, particularly in view of the recent amalgamation of the portfolios of the ministry of international cooperation and the ministry of foreign affairs.
"To put it simply, Abul-Naga is very competent. She has an edge on multilateral diplomacy and she has a huge circle of contacts when it comes to exercising bilateral diplomacy," commented one senior diplomat.
After joining the foreign service in the early 1970s, Abul-Naga served in the UN twice. Her first post was in New York and her last was in Geneva. She also went to New York in 1992, one of a select group of Egyptian diplomats who were taken on loan from the foreign ministry by Boutros Ghali when he was elected as UN secretary-general. Abul- Naga's tenure there lasted four years and, according to one Egyptian diplomat who served in several posts in New York, "she left a strong impression on all those who worked with her."
Abul-Naga then returned to Cairo to serve as assistant foreign minister for African Affairs with Moussa. Her close rapport with Ghali is only matched by her professional accord with Moussa. "She is certainly a prominent disciple of Moussa. She is a tough negotiator and a charming person. She is well-read and she has both integrity and modesty," commented one diplomat who has worked with both Moussa and Abul-Naga. Moussa once remarked that Abul-Naga was "an excellent diplomat. She will make it one day."
Abul-Naga's diplomatic talents have been called upon time and time again over the past year. Immediately after the outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada, Abul-Naga helped encourage UN human rights organisations to document Israeli violations against the Palestinians. Throughout the year, Abul-Naga worked closely with Arab and African diplomats in Geneva to prepare for the UN conference on racism that was held in Durban last August. She also showed perfect diplomatic acumen in lobbying, with other Arab diplomats, for the conference of the Fourth Geneva Convention for treatment of civilians under occupation to be held. The conference is now scheduled for 5 December.
Abul-Naga, however, will not be attending. As minister of state for foreign affairs, she is already immersed in her new job. Those who have visited her in her new office on the first floor of the foreign ministry's Nile-side building report that she is already busy with her files. Meanwhile, her former colleagues in Geneva have faith in her ability to excel in the new job. In the words of a Geneva-based Egyptian diplomat: "She was well-respected. Everybody in the diplomatic circles of Geneva knew Fayza Abul-Naga. Everybody, even those who disagreed with her views, had respect for her. She commands respect."
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