[FP] Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to announce the appointment of a new special envoy to oversee the Great Lakes region of Africa, as part of his drive to fill the U.S. State Department’s depleted ranks.
J. Peter Pham, an Africa scholar at a Washington-based think tank, is slated to be tapped for the job, two officials familiar with internal deliberations told Foreign Policy, which State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert later confirmed in a statement. He will oversee U.S. policy on a region beset by insecurity and political unrest. The area includes the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where President Joseph Kabila is clinging to power well beyond the country’s constitutional term limits and which is struggling with an internal rebellion, humanitarian crises, and a growing Ebola outbreak.
Pham was initially slated to be President Donald Trump’s senior-most diplomat on Africa, but a lone Republican senator threatened to block his appointment to the post of assistant secretary of state for African affairs if nominated, as FP first reported.
Republican Sen. James Inhofe held up his nomination over a disagreement between the two on issues related to the disputed Western Sahara region that Morocco claims as its own territory. Following the impasse, Trump instead tapped Tibor Nagy, a former career diplomat, to fill the assistant secretary post.
Assistant secretary of state positions require presidential nomination and Senate confirmation, whereas special envoy positions do not. 
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