Financial Times Journalist Appointed Head of Information and Public Affairs

Joel Kibazo, from Uganda, has been appointed Director of Information and Public Affairs and spokesperson of the Commonwealth Secretariat from Friday 1 December 2000. He succeeds Kaye Whiteman who will resume his career as a journalist.

Mr Kibazo joins the Secretariat after more than a decade in London at The Financial Times where he has worked as a reporter in the financial markets and as a producer on their television service. Mr Kibazo has worked and reported from many countries around the world. He has written and presented several radio documentaries for the BBC World Service and BBC Radio Four and programmes for BBC World Television and Sky Television.

Mr Kibazo has also been a regular contributor to magazines in London, Africa, Japan and the United States. He has lectured on the media in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and Zimbabwe and at universities in the United Kingdom. He has been actively involved in the Commonwealth Press Union.

In addition to his work as a journalist Mr Kibazo has been a member of the judging panel for the CNN Africa Journalist of the Year and is its current chairman. He is a member of the committee of the Michael Caine Literature Prize and of the policy committee of the Centre for the Study of African Economies, Oxford University.







00/105 30 November 2000