New EU Ambassador for Nigeria

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The European Union has appointed a new Ambassador and Head of the EU Delegation to the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He is Ambassador David MacRae. Ambassador MacRae replaces Mr. Robert van der Meulen, the erstwhile Head of the EU Delegation to Nigeria who completed his tenure in Abuja two years ago.

Ambassador MacRae presented his letters of credence to President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja on September 2, 2010. Ambassador MacRae is also the EU's Permanent Representative to the Commission of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

David MacRae, a Briton, was educated at Bolton School and Leeds University in the north of England, where he studied agricultural sciences and economics, obtaining a Doctorate Degree in Philosophy (PhD). He also received further education at the Institute for Development Studies in the University of Nairobi, Kenya.

After lecturing in economics in Leeds, he joined the UK Government's Economic Service as an economic adviser in London – before joining the European Commission in Brussels. He has worked from the European Commission headquarters on cooperation programmes in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, and as an economic adviser in the EU Delegation in Zambia from 1985 to 1988.

Dr David MacRae has served as Ambassador, Head of the EU Delegation in Papua New Guinea, from 1992 to 1996 and in Fiji, from where he also covered most of the other Pacific Islands, from 1996 to 2000. He was Head of Unit at European Commission headquarters in Brussels from 2001 to 2004 where he was responsible for centrally managed cooperation programmes with Asia.

Before becoming the Ambassador and Head of the EU Delegation to Nigeria, Dr MacRae has served for the last five years as the Ambassador and Head of the EU Delegation in Rwanda.