SAARC First Woman Secretary General Assumes Office

Kathmandu (Asiantribune.com):  Fathimath Dhiyana Saeed of Maldives, the newly-appointed Secretary General of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) assumed her office last week.

Saeed, who succeeds Dr Sheel Kanta Sharma of India, takes pride to be the first woman to head the regional body comprising eight South Asian countries.

A former Attorney General of Republic of Maldives and former parliamentarian, Saeed is the 10th Secretary General of the SAARC. She was serving as Maldivian Government’s Envoy for South Asia just prior to assuming her new assignment in Kathmandu, according to a press statement issued by SAARC Secretariat in Kathmandu.

Saeed holds a Master’s Degree in Law from the Graduate School of Law and Politics, Osaka University, Japan.

Saeed is the second Maldivian to be appointed SAARC Secretary General after Special Envoy to the President Ibrahim Hussein Zakee, who also held prominent positions in the former regime.

Her appointment as the head of SAARC comes a year after president Mohamed Nasheed sacked her from the Attorney General position following public disputes and her husband Abdulla Jabir, Chairman of Yacht Tours and former MP joined the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party.

The Secretary Generals of SAARC are appointed by the Council of Ministers upon nomination by a member state on the basis of the principle of rotation in alphabetical order for a period of three years. The 33rd session of SAARC Council of Ministers held in Thimpu, Bhutan, last month had appointed her to lead SAARC for next three years upon nomination by the government of Maldives.

Upon her arrival at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Saeed said that she hopes to expand and empower the SAARC Secretariat to place further emphasis on implementing during her tenure.