M. Alida U. Francis is a Dutch civil servant who has been appointed island Governor of Sint Eustatius on April 10, 2024. She is the first woman to hold this position out of 400 Island Governors.

Early life and education

Francis was born and raised on St. Eustatius. Between 1977 and 1985 she lived in

Aruba Aruba, officially the Country of Aruba, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in the southern Caribbean Sea north of the Venezuelan peninsula of Paraguaná Peninsula, Paraguaná and northwest of Curaçao. In 19 ...

, where she obtained her HAVO diploma at the Colegio Arubano. She then went on to study

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...

at the Hogeschool Utrecht.

Career

Her career started in 1989 as a broadcast journalist in

Sint Maarten Sint Maarten () is a Countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands located in the Caribbean region of North America. With a population of 58,477 as of June 2023 on an area of , it encompasses ...

. A year later she transferred to the government, where she started working in the office of the Lieutenant Governor of Sint Maarten as a specialist in protocol and public relations. Between 1992 and 2010 she was director of the Sint Eustatius Tourism Development Foundation. In 1995 she was appointed a member of the Nation Building Committee of the Netherlands Antilles on behalf of Sint Eustatius. On 27 April 2007, Alida Francis was appointed a Knight of the

Order of Orange-Nassau The Order of Orange-Nassau () is a civil and military Dutch order of chivalry founded on 4 April 1892 by the queen regent, Emma of the Netherlands. The order is a chivalric order open to "everyone who has performed acts of special merits for ...

. From 2010, Alida Francis was employed by the National Office for the

Caribbean Netherlands The Caribbean Netherlands (, ) is a geographic region of the Netherlands located outside of Europe, in the Caribbean, consisting of three special municipalities. These are the islands of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba (island), Saba,"Bonair ...

, where as acting head of communication she is responsible for all communication strategies for the BES islands. After

hurricane Irma Hurricane Irma was an extremely powerful and devastating tropical cyclone that was the first Category 5 hurricane to strike the Leeward Islands on record, followed by Hurricane Maria, Maria two weeks later. At the time, it was considered ...

, she made an important contribution to the reconstruction of St. Eustatius. Francis was appointed Hon. Deputy Government Commissioner of St. Eustatius on 15 February 2020, succeeding Mervyn Stegers . Together with His Excellency Government Commissioner, Marnix van Rij. Since taking charge, Ms. Francis has been responsible for getting the Government on St. Eustatius back on course. The functions of government commissioner and the deputy government commissioners were appointed in February 2018 after the executive council and the island council of St. Eustatius were set aside due to an accusation of gross neglect of duties. She was appointed Government Commissioner of St. Eustatius with effect from 22 June 2021. Her successor as Hon. Deputy Government Commissioner is Nicoline van der Linden Geertsema. On March 8, 2024 she was appointed as the 1st Female Governor of Sint Eustatius. Her appointment ceremony is to be announced.

References

External links

* https://www.nieuwsbzk.nl/2673410.aspx?t=Mevrouw-MAU-Alida-Francis-wordt-de-gezaghebber-van-Sint-Eustatius {{DEFAULTSORT:Francis, Alida Lieutenant governors of Sint Eustatius 1965 births Living people Sint Eustatius politicians Sint Eustatius women in politics Knights of the Order of Orange-Nassau