At a White House ceremony today, His Excellency Michael Moussa-Adamo presented his credentials as the new Ambassador of the Gabonese Republic to U.S. President Barack Obama.
Ambassador Moussa is no stranger to Washington. After completing his master’s degree in international relations and communications at Boston University in 1989, the new Ambassador worked as a consultant to the World Wildlife Fund at its Washington headquarters. Over the course of a decade, Ambassador Moussa lived and worked in three American cities: Boston, Washington, and Phoenix.
“I came to America as a young man in 1981 and I learned to appreciate and understand America and Americans. To come back as Ambassador is a dream come true,” Ambassador Moussa said.
President Ali Bongo Ondimba’s appointment of Ambassador Moussa as Gabon’s envoy to the United States comes after a two-decade career in public service, which included five years as a deputy in the Gabonese National Assembly, where he served as spokesman for the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs and defense. He has also served as special advisor to the President of Gabon; chief of staff to the Minister of National Defense; diplomatic counselor in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; head of the Department of Tourism, Arts, Culture, and Sports; and chief of the information technology division of the Department of Communication in the office of the President.
In addition to his work with the World Wildlife Fund, Ambassador Moussa has also been a teaching assistant in the African Studies Center at Boston University; research assistant at the Center for International Relations at Boston University, studying the economies of the Pacific Rim; a consultant at JSI/World Education, where he evaluated the BAND AID/LIVE AID philanthropic projects; and a consultant at IFESH (International Foundation for Education and Self-Help) in Phoenix, where he worked on the first African-African American Summit held in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. He is the founder of two small consulting businesses in Gabon, MS Consulting and LOCAT.
“My sincere hope,” Ambassador Moussa said, “is to represent Gabon as a little America – its own ‘city on a hill’ that lights the way to liberty, freedom, and opportunity for all. I hope to show people here that Gabon has opportunities for investment, trade, and tourism that can open up the whole sub-region of west and central Africa to Americans.”
Continuing, he explained, “Gabon aims to become an emerging economy over the next two decades. It is already open for business and it wants America to participate in the achievement of this goal.
“Industrial Gabon seeks American industries to invest in it; Service-oriented Gabon will foster the service sector of the economy; and Green Gabon promotes the natural environment and ecotourism, preserving resources for future generations.
“Gabon is known as the ‘last Eden’ and the United States can work with us to protect it,” he concluded.
Ambassador Moussa is married and the father of six children, including three attending colleges in the United States. He succeeds His Excellency Carlos Victor Boungou, who was appointed to be Gabon’s Ambassador to the Republic of Korea in Seoul.
Ambassador Moussa’s arrival comes just three months after President Ali Bongo Ondimba met with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office to discuss regional and global issues. Gabon is one of three African countries with a seat on the United Nations Security Council and it has been involved in high-level discussions about many of the headline topics in global affairs.
For more information and a photograph of the ceremony, please visit http://bit.ly/oFcIJn or http://gabonembassyusa.com
