Célestin Monga from Cameroon appointed Managing Director of United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)

- Quantum Global group Advisory Board member takes top UN post

GENEVA- A leading member of Swiss based Quantum Global group’s Advisory Board has today accepted a key UN post based in Vienna. 

Célestin Monga, a Cameroonian national, an internationally recognized economist and currently Director of the Oxford University Press Handbook of Africa and Economics, has accepted the post of Managing Director at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the UN body mandated to promote and accelerate inclusive and sustainable industrial development in developing countries and economies in transition. Appointed last year as a pro bono member to the Advisory Board of Quantum Global group, whose work targets African private equity, investment and infrastructure interests, Mr Monga has served with great distinction.  

Welcoming the appointment, Quantum Global group Founder, Jean Claude Bastos De Morais, said, “Célestin is a distinguished international figure who has brought tremendous vision and wisdom to our work and I know that he will continue to make a remarkable contribution to global development in everything he does. We warmly congratulate him on his appointment to this crucial UN post and we are delighted that he has agreed to retain his place on the Quantum Global group Advisory Board where we benefit greatly from his intellect, experience and insights. All my colleagues here at Quantum Global group are immensely proud to be associated with Célestin.” 

Célestin Monga responded saying, “I am humbled that UNIDO’s Director-General Li Yong offered me this new opportunity. For more than two centuries, industrialization has been the main engine of growth and prosperity in the world and has helped lift out of poverty hundreds of millions of people. 

However, the realization that current modes of industrialization are neither inclusive nor properly sustainable has led the Member States of UNIDO to adopt the December 2013 Lima Declaration in which they agreed to promote Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Development. I thank Jean-Claude for the strong support he provided to the Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics and the Young African Scholars Program, which have given visibility and exposure to the work of many bright African researchers. 

I am grateful to my Advisory Board colleagues at Quantum Global group for their support and I look forward to continuing working with them to foster synergies between the private sector and development institutions, and advance the global agenda of employment generation and social peace.”