The Executive Secretary is the Chief Executive and the Legal Representative of ACALAN. He discharges the following duties subject to the directives of the Board:
- Manage ACALAN Secretariat;
- Be the authorizing officer of the ACALAN budget;
- Implement the directives of the Board and report to it thereon;
- Prepare the programme of activities, the financial report and the ACALAN Report;
- Prepare and submit to the Board the Draft Budget, Activity Report, Rules of Procedure of the various organs and the Plan of Action of ACALAN for consideration and approval;
- Attend all meetings of the Board and act as its Secretary;
- Be responsible for collecting and disseminating results of linguistic research;
- Coordinate training programmes for researchers;
- Ensure the archiving of documents and establish a data bank;
- Ensure the production and translation of ACALAN publications in the vehicular trans-border languages and partner languages;
- Ensure the publication of the ACALAN bulletin;
- Monitor the implementation of the Language Plan of Action for Africa;
- Perform any other functions in line with the objectives of ACALAN.
- Should the position fall vacant or the Executive Secretary be prevented from discharging the above duties, he/she shall be temporarily replaced by the most senior Official within the Secretariat until the appointment of the new Executive Secretary.