TANZANIA BIODIVERSITY CRUSADER NAMED AMONG TOP 100 INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD

 

BY GRACE  MACHA IN ARUSHA

A Tanzanian biodiversity crusader has been named among the top 100 influential people in the world for 2023.

Award-winning Elizabeth Maruma Mrema has been recognized for her dedication to conservation awareness.

She is among the only two African women on TIME magazine's top 100 most influential people globally this year (2023).

The recognition comes only two months after Ms Mrema assumed her responsibilities as the deputy executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

She was appointed for the post by the UN secretary general in December last year and assumed responsibilities on February 15th.

The TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People list features a blend of  celebrated leaders, athletes, activists, artists, scientists and moguls.

Entrants, according to the highly rated American news magazine, are recognized for changing the world regardless of the consequences of their actions.

Before taking over as UNEP's deputy executive director Ms Mrema served as executive secretary of the Secretariat for the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD).

This is a United Nations programme initiated in the early 1990s and which is  geared to conserve the world's existing,threatened or endangered genetic resources.

Prior to that she served in various capacities at UNEP, a UN agency based in Nairobi, largely in the law and ecosystems protection dockets.

Ms Mrema, an accomplished lawyer trained at the University of Dar es Salaam, has instead defined her long service in the UN in conservation.

At one time, she was the executive secretary of the Secretariat for the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals.

At different times in the past she worked at the Foreign Affairs ministry as senior legal counsel and taught at the Centre for Foreign Relations.

The TIME magazine list of the 100 top most influential added to nearly a dozen international awards the soft spoken Tanzanian lady had landed in, mostly in the natural resources.

The only other woman in the list for this year's award is from Kenya; the daughter of Ms Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Award in 2004.

Ms Wanjari Maathai, an environmentalist, is the current managing director of World Resources Institute, a think tank based in Washington.

Ms Mrema is the fourth Tanzanian national to serve in  the executive positions in the United Nations system.

Incidentally she took over the same position (deputy executive secretary at UNEP) from Ms Joyce Msuya, another Tanzanian, who served in that capacity from 2018 to 2022.

High profile Tanzanian nationals who had served in the top executive positions at the UN service include Dr. Asha Rose Migiro who was the deputy UN secretary general and Prof Anna Tibaijuka, who worked for nearly 10 years as the executive director of UN Habitat.