IGAD Executive Secretary, H.E. Amb (Eng) Mahboub Maalim, introduced the matter of the day during a very brief opening session before the Chair welcomed his counterparts to the meeting and officially opened the session.

 The Committee’s members were immediately taken through the management achievements made during 2018 and the activities planned for 2019 within the framework of the IGAD Operational Plan by the Director of Administration & Finance, Mr Josephat Onyari. The Director also presented the planned budget for the year that just started.

 The Committee then embarked on a questions and answers session during which the budget and the operational plan were thoroughly looked into. Notably, the Committee called on IGAD Secretariat to allocate funds to the Mediation Support Unit so as to allow the deployment of the members of the IGAD Roster of Mediators, when necessary and in a timely manner.

 Following frank and open discussions, the IGAD budget and operational plan 2019 were endorsed by the Committee of Ambassadors.

 Furthermore, the members of the Committee expressed the need for the organisation to hold an Ordinary Council of Ministers the soonest in such a manner pending institutional matters, such the draft IGAD Treaty and the new organisational structure which they did endorse in the past, were brought forward to the IGAD Ministers of Foreign Affairs for consideration among other thing things.

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