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.