The normal practice was for the general secretary to head the secretariat.
One had headed the secretariat of the Independent Electoral Commission, which was accused of participating in the fraud that tarnished last year's presidential elections.
In meetings with José Bustani, who heads the secretariat that enforces the Chemical Weapons Convention signed by 130 countries, Zinovy Pak, director of the Russian Munitions Agency, said funds for the destruction of chemical arms had been increased sixfold this year to $105 million.
Agus Purnomo, a former director of WWF in Indonesia who now heads the secretariat of the National Council on Climate Change, says that the country's third place in the carbon-emissions tables is a hangover from the disastrous El Niño of the late 1990s.
He heads the Secretariat, which is responsible for implementing IAEA programmes.
Pope Francis created the position of the Secretariat of the Economy to oversea the finances and administrative functions of the Holy See and appointed Australian Cardinal George Pell to head the Secretariat.
Wood heads the secretariat for the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, an emerging international coalition that has set disaster reduction as one of nine priority areas [see "Terra Cognita: Using Earth Observing Systems to Understand Our World," p. A98 this issue].
As a reward for his services, Emperor Justinian then appointed Peter to the post of magister officiorum ("Master of the Offices"), one of the highest positions in the state, heading the palace secretariat, the imperial guards (the Scholae Palatinae), and the Public Post with the dreaded agentes in rebus.
It will also fill a gap in the international spectrum of organizations, since no other intergovernmental institution is dedicated to the promotion of renewable energy, said Virginia Sonntag-O'Brien, who heads the REN21 secretariat in Paris.
Dr Tom Kariuki, who will head the Aesa secretariat, indicated that a primary objective will be to turn the tide against the many easily preventable diseases that claim millions of lives on the continent.
