Japan's Koji Sekimizu, who took office as the new Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) last Jan. 1, 2012 has announced a number of changes in the structure of IMO Secretariat "to improve delivery mechanism" in the Secretariat.

Sekimizu, the eighth Secretary-General of IMO, announced that IMO assistant secretary-general Andrew Winbow has been named as the new director of Maritime Safety. Winbow was with the Organization's Administrative Division prior to his new post. Jo-Espinosa-Ferrey of the Marine Environment Division has been named head of the Administrative Division as its new director, while Stefan Micallef now takes over as the new Marine Environment director.

In a statement Sekimizu said, "The biggest challenge I see in the coming years, in terms of management of the Organizaton, is how to improve the delivery mechanism in the Secretariat, to address the 'demanding' issues we face, such as 'anti-piracy measures,' the introduction of the Mandatory Member State Audit Scheme (MMSAS) and our ever-increasing workload."

"To address this will require effective human resources' deployment and redeployment', the creation of new ways of handling our work and improvements to our working methods," he said, adding. "It will also require close co-operation between the Secretariat and Member-Governments."
 
 
Source: mb