Symerre has been involved with the NEPAD programme since 2007, and officially join the Agency in 2014. Since then, he has held several senior positions including serving as Head of Partnerships and Resource Mobilisation, Chief of Staff, Head of Regional Integration, Infrastructure and Trade, Director of Operations, Director of Technical Cooperation and Programme Funding. He is currently serving as Director of Human Capital and Institutional Development. Symerre has played a fundamental role in the transformation of the then NEPAD Secretariat into the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency and subsequently to AUDA-NEPAD, as a result he has worked in almost all Directorates within AUDA-NEPAD.
Prior to joining AUDA-NEPAD he worked for the German Development Agency (GIZ) for 7 years. His work focused on assisting African Institutions implement their mandates and was initially seconded to the African Forum for Utility Regulators (AFUR). Thereafter, he served as Technical Advisor under the GIZ programme to support the Collaborative Africa Budget Reform Initiative (CABRI) and later worked as Component Manager under the GIZ programme to Support Pan-African Institutions (SPAI). Symerre also served as the GIZ Senior Technical Advisor to the National Planning Commission of South Africa on the Presidential Infrastructure Champions Initiative (PICI) and the then NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA).
In his home country of The Gambia, he worked at Gambia Public Utility Regulatory Authority (PURA) as the Director in charge of Policy and Strategy, and Head of the department that was the first and last point of contact between consumers, policy makers and external partners. His responsibilities included creating the enabling regulatory environment for government policies and sector legislations to be implemented. Symerre holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Dalhousie University and Master of Arts degree in International Economics from the University of Colorado, Denver, USA.
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