Madické Niang

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senegal

Date of Birth: 25/09/1953
Place of Birth: Saint-Louis

Senegal’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Madické Niang has kept up a busy Asian schedule this year. February took him to Delhi for meetings with his counterpart, SM Krishna. He co-chaired the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) ministerial follow-up conference in Dakar in early May, alongside Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto. He then joined the India-Africa Forum in Addis Ababa on 20-26 May before heading to Bali, Indonesia, for the sixteenth ministerial conference of the Non-Aligned Movement.

In mid-May, Niang also travelled to Beijing for an audience with Vice-President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. China honoured the occasion with an offer of 5.6 billion CFA francs (US$12.5 million) in economic and technical cooperation.

Regional activities also keep Niang busy. Senegal condemned Laurent Gbagbo’s long stand-off in Côte d’Ivoire after he lost the November 2010 elections. Niang has also taken steps, albeit slow ones, toward resolving border issues with Gambia.

Another irritant is the ongoing effort to bring Hissène Habré to trial for state-sanctioned murder and torture during his eight-year reign as President of Chad. Deposed in 1990, Habré has since lived in exile in Senegal. Niang was Habré’s counsel for many years; then, as Justice Minister, he oversaw moves in 2008 to allow Habré’s trial in Senegal. Habré now faces prosecution in an ad hoc court, long delayed by negotiations with the African Union over financing.

Born in 1953, Niang earned his law degree at the Université d’Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire. He was a legal advisor to President Abdoulaye Wade in 2000-02, then Minister of Housing (2002-03), Mines (2003-08) and Justice (2008-09). He has held the Foreign Affairs post since October 2009.