Interim Chairperson

Amb. Maj Gen (rtd) George Aggrey Owinow, CBS, is a retired Kenyan professional military officer with a distinguished military and diplomatic career, spanning over four decades, having served in different security and diplomatic missions in Africa and around the world.

Some of the highlights of his career include serving as the Deputy Force Commander for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), a Brigade Commander at the Kenya Army Corps of Engineers, responsible for nomination, training and deployment of Engineer personnel to AMISOM on Combat Engineer roles.  

Additionally, Amb. Owinow served as a Defense Advisor at the Kenya Mission to the United Nations in New York, mainly coordinating Kenya’s Peacekeeping programmes in six peacekeeping missions worldwide. 

He also served with the UN peace keeping operation in Liberian (UNMIL) as a military observer and negotiator in the Joint Military Ceasefire Committee. 

In November 2020, he was nominated by Kenya Government and endorsed by the IGAD as Interim Chairperson of the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission, South Sudan. 

Before joining RJMEC, Amb. Owinow served as Kenya’s High Commissioner to the Republic of Uganda. 

Amb. Owinow holds Masters of Art in Social Transformation: Sustainable Human Development and Governance, Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi and Bachelor of Arts in Sustainable Human Development, Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi. He is married and blessed with three children.

Chief of Staff

Amb. Berhanu Kebede is an  economist and a distinguished diplomat whose career spans over four decades. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Addis Ababa University (1978) and M.A. Degrees in Development Economics (1986) and, Management and Finance (1988) from the Free University of Brussels. 

Highlights of his career include serving as the Ethiopia/European Economic Community (EEC) Relations Desk Officer at the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1978. In 1983, he moved to the Diplomatic Mission in Brussels serving as an Economist. Amb. Kebede participated in negotiations leading to the 1981 and 1985 extensions of the Lomé Convention–a trade and aid agreement between the European Economic Community and 71 African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries, first signed in February 1975 in Lomé, Togo. He further participated in the Committees that pursued the implementation of the Convention.

In 1992, Amb. Kebede returned to Addis Ababa to lead the Western European Division at the Ministry as a Counselor, before taking up the role as the Acting Director General for International Organization and Economic Cooperation in 1993. Later that year, he was promoted to the position of Director General, representing Ethiopia in the Organization of African Unity Council and Summit, between 1992 and 2000 as well as the Economic Commission for Africa Ministerial Conferences, held in that period. 

He also chaired the Economic and Social Council meeting of the African Economic Community in June 1998, and served as Deputy Leader of the Ethiopian Delegation to the United Nations from 1993 to 2000.

On 7 December 2000, Amb. Kebede was appointed as the Ethiopian Ambassador to Russia. In February 2002, he was appointed as the Ambassador of Ethiopia to Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland. In March 2006, he was appointed as the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia to the United Kingdom, a position he held for 10 years. In 2015, H.E. Berhanu Kebede received the Award 'Diplomat of the Year from Africa' by the London-based Foreign Affairs Magazine 'The Diplomat'.

In 2016, H.E. Amb. Berhanu Kebede was appointed as the Chief of Staff at the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (RJMEC) for the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan.

Amb. Kebede speaks Amharic, English and French.