Ambassador for Mauritania From 1968 to 1985 he held several
cabinet-level posts in the Mauritanian government, serving as
Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation and as Minister of Trade and Transportation. He also served as Mauritania's
Ambassador to
Belgium,
Luxembourg, the
Netherlands, the
European Union and the
United States. Moreover, he was Chief Executive Officer at the
Société Nationale Industrielle et Minière de Mauritanie, the largest mining company and cooperation in Mauritania.
UN Special Representative Between 1985 and 1993, Ould-Abdallah worked as adviser on energy, including renewable energies and African issues, to the United Nations Secretary-General. From 1993 to 1995, he was
Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's
Special Representative in
Burundi, during the first part of the
Burundi Civil War. Between 1996 and 2002, he served as the Executive Secretary of the Global Coalition for Africa, a Washington D.C.–based intergovernmental forum dedicated to African issues. In 2002, Secretary General
Kofi Annan appointed him Special Representative for West Africa at the head of the
United Nations Office for West Africa. From 2003 to 2007, Ould-Abdallah was jointly Special Representative of the Secretary-General for West Africa and Chairman of the Cameroon-Nigeria Mixed Commission. He was successful in supporting the peaceful settlement of the land and maritime border dispute between the two countries. In 2006, the United Nations Secretary-General
Kofi Annan sent him on a short-term mission as Special Envoy to
Sudan to clarify the agreement with the Sudanese Government on the proposed UN-AU joint peacekeeping force. Ould-Abdallah has also been active in the work of
non-governmental organizations, including the Global Coalition for Africa and the
World Future Council, the International Centre for Ethics, Justice and Public Life of
Brandeis University,
ICRC, and
Search for Common Ground. He is a co-founder and a member of the Advisory Board of
Transparency International. He is member of the International Advisory Board of the African Press Organization (APO), as well as serving on the Board of Advisors of the
International Peace and Security Institute (IPSI). He served on the Board of Directors of Search for Common Ground from 1997 to 2004, is a current member since 2011.
Somalia From September 2007 until July 2010, Ould-Abdallah served as Special Representative for the UN Secretary-General for
Somalia. In this position he mediated peace talks between the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia and the
Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and the
Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS) based in
Asmara, Eritrea. He successfully negotiated the agreement between the two parties. This agreement is known as the Djibouti Agreement It was the first agreement of this kind not sponsored by a specific country, but signed under the auspices of the
United Nations.
African Union, the
Arab league, the
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the
United States, the
European Union, the
United Kingdom and
France were co-signatures to the agreement. Mr. Ould-Abdallah established the well acclaimed steering committee on
Somalia, composed of the
United Nations, African Union and
Intergovernmental Authority on Development. In July 2010, after the longest term in Somalia of any United Nations Special Representative, Ould-Abdallah announced his retirement from the United Nations in a farewell letter to the
Somali diaspora. He also thanked the leadership of Somalia's
Transitional Federal Government (TFG) with whom he had worked closely. Ould-Abdallah returned to United Nations Headquarters in
New York City as the Mediator-in-Residence to the
Department of Political Affairs of the
United Nations Secretariat in November 2010 for his de-briefing. Ouid-Abdallah is on the Board of Advisors for the
International Peace and Security Institute. ==Books==