2017 | Policy Center for the New South

Jalal Abdel-Latif

Senior Fellow OCP Policy Center

Jalal Abdel-Latif is currently the Governance and Human Security cluster head at the Capacity Development Division at the UNECA.

JALAL has over 25 years of professional experience in the areas of corporate social responsibility, civic engagement, grant making, project design and enhancing the capacities of non-profit organizations. He began his career as researcher and capacity analyst at UCLA African studies center. He then worked as Grants manager for USA for Africa (the We Are the World project) in California. He was a co-founder and CEO OF Inter-Africa Group, regional think thank. He was appointed by the late prime minister to serve on the Ethiopian telecommunication Board of directors to assist in its modernization and expansion.

Didier Acouetey

President AfricaSearch, Togo

Didier Acouetey is President and Founder of the AfricaSearch Group, the first recruitment and Human Resources management firm specialized in Africa, which makes him one of the first in Europe to participate actively in reversing the African “brain drain”.

As business advisor to several of Africa’s major companies and public institutions, Didier Acouetey has built up an extensive network of contacts in the African business and political community. Further, Didier Acouetey is Vice-President of “Groupe Initiative Afrique”, a Think Tank that gathers top African economic and political decision makers. He is also member of other active organizations such as Africa 2. 0 and Aspen Institute. He is also the promoter of the ‘Youth Excellency Program’, an organization that operates in different African countries to promote Young Africans Leaders. In November 2000, he has co-founded the first Africa South East Asia Chamber of Commerce in Singapore. In 2014, Didier received the African Entrepreneur Award of the Year in France. Didier Acouetey is a graduate from the Arts et Métiers school in Paris, and holds a Bachelor degree and a MBA from ESCP EAP.

Hisham Aidi

Lecturer in the Discipline of International and Public Affairs, SIPA Columbia University

Hisham Aidi's research interests include cultural globalization and the political economy of race and social movements.

He received his PhD in political science from Columbia University, and has taught at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, and at the Driskell Center for the Study of the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the author of Redeploying the State (Palgrave 2008) a comparative study of neo-liberalism and labor movements in Latin America; and co-editor, with Manning Marable, of Black Routes to Islam (Palgrave 2009). In 2002-2003, Aidi was a consultant for UNDP's Human Development Report. From 2000-2003, he was part of Harvard University's Encarta Africana project, and worked as a cultural reporter, covering youth culture and immigration in Harlem and the Bronx, for Africana, The New African and ColorLines. Since 2007, he has been a contributing editor of Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Culture, Politics and Society. Aidi is the author most recently of Rebel Music: Race, Empire and the New Muslim Youth Culture (Pantheon 2014), a study of American cultural diplomacy.

Emiliano Alessandri

Senior External Co-operation Officer, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

Emiliano Alessandri is a Senior External Cooperation Officer with the OSCE.

His portfolio includes Mediterranean cooperation and migration. Emiliano is also a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges and a Non-Resident Senior Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Uduak Amimo

Presenter Royal Media Services

Uduak Amimo is a broadcast journalist, journalism trainer and communication consultant.

She is currently the host of Cheche, a weekly, current affair talk show that airs on Kenya’s leading television station, Citizen TV. She is also the founder of Ramani Life Group, a charity that offers career guidance to students in low-income secondary schools. Her career in journalism started in 1997 and includes roles across radio and television with Reuters Television, the Voice of America and the BBC World Service. She moderates high level discussions at international conferences around the world and was one of the moderators of Kenya’s first, live, televised presidential debates. Uduak is a 2017 Boehm Media Fellow; a 2017 Bloomberg Africa Leadership Initiative Media Fellow; a 2015 Archbishop Desmond Tutu Fellow of the African Leadership Institute; and, a 2014 Global Social Impact Fellow, a program offered by the University of Pennsylvania’s Centre for Social Impact Strategy. Uduak graduated cum laude from USIU-A in Nairobi with a B. A in International Relations. She has an M. A in Communication and Public Affairs from American University in Washington, DC.

Youssef Amrani

Mission Head Royal Cabinet

Youssef Amrani is a Moroccan diplomat and politician. He has held the position of Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation and is currently working in the Royal cabinet. He holds a degree in economics from Mohammed V University of Rabat (1978) and a degree in management from the Boston University School of Management. Youssef Amrani joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation in 1978 as Secretary of Foreign Affairs.

Youssef Amrani worked as an attaché at the Office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation (1981-1984), and later as an international civil servant at the Islamic Center for Trade Development of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (1984-1989).From 1989 to 1992, he served as Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State for the Arab Maghreb Union at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 1992 to 1996, he held the position of Consul General of Morocco in Barcelona. He has been Ambassador of His Majesty the King in several countries in the Americas, first in Colombia, Ecuador and Panama with residence in Bogotá (1996-1999), then in Chile (1999-2001) and Mexico, Guatemala , El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Belize with residence in Mexico City (2001-2003). From 2003 to 2008, he held the post of Ambassador, Director General of Bilateral Relations at the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. From November 2008 to June 2011, he was Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. From May 2011 to January 2012, he held the post of Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean (UPM).

Youssef Kobo Aouriaghel

Strategic Innovation Consultant

Youssef Kobo is a Strategic Innovation Consultant. CD&V politician. Former advisor to the Brussels Secretary of Digitalization. A Belgian author, publicist and public speaker.

Who predominantly writes about International Relations, MENA, Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Member of the Think Thank Vrijdaggroep and member of the World Economic Forum's Global Shapers. A social entrepreneur and founder of several non-profit programs around the world.

David Applefield

Special representative Africa Financial Times

David Applefield, Executive Publisher of Kiwai Media, is a seasoned communications specialist, editor, writer, and media strategist, highly focused on creative and innovative solutions for leaders in industry, heads of state, Ministries, NGOs, and Foundations. Highly experienced in book publishing, Applefield is energized by helping interesting and compelling individuals, especially those motivated by value-based causes, to gain impact by developing their voices in eclectic forms of shareable media, including books, journalism, native advertising, and original strategies.

Founder of paris-anglo.com, the highly-renowned pre-blog newsletter My Mercredi, and the literary journal FRANK, Applefield is the author of two novels and several guide books to Paris, as well as an English-language method. Committed to combating ethnocentricity, Applefield has aligned Kiwai Media with designer William McDonough's vision for "waging peace with commerce." Since 1998, Applefield has worked for the Financial Times as its commercial Special Representative for Africa, the Middle East, and Emerging Markets, developing special reports on countries and themes including Investing in Nigeria, Mauritania, Senegal, Leading Business Women in Emerging Markets, African Farming, African Power, and Combating Malaria. Iu Originally from Boston, and a graduate of Amherst College and Northeastern University, Applefield who has lived in France for decades, works between Europe, North America, and Africa, where he has been advising and training leaders and media professionals for 20 years.

Jorge Arbache

Secretary of International Affairs, the Ministry of Planning of Brazil

Jorge Arbache is Secretary of International Affairs in the Ministry of Planning of Brazil, Professor of Economics at the University of Brasilia, Executive Secretary of the Brazil-China Investment Fund and of the Federal Government External Financing Commission (Cofiex), member of the Board of Directors of BNDES and Logigas, business columnist at Valor Econômico, book author and blogger.

His previous appointments include Chief Economist in the Ministry of Planning, Senior Economic Adviser to the Presidency of the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES), and Senior Economist in the World Bank in Washington, D.C.

Mr Arbache is especially interested in economic growth, trade, investment, productivity, innovation, technology, competitiveness, services and the digital economy. Mr. Arbache holds a Ph.D in Economics and Bachelor’s degrees in Economics and in Law.

Tom Arnold

Director General Institute for International and European Affairs

Tom Arnold is a member of the Agriculture for Growth Malebo Montpellier Panel.

In addition, he is a member of the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition, and of the Lead Group of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement. He has served as Interim Director of the SUN Movement (2014- 16), Director General of the Irish Institute of International and European Affairs, and as Chairman of the Irish Constitutional Convemtion. He was Chief Executive of Concern Worldwide, Ireland's largest humanitarian organisation, from 2001-13 and had earlier served as Chief Economist and Assistant Secretary General in the Irish Department of Agriculture and Food and as Administrator with the European Commission, serving in Brussels and in Africa. He has chaired or being a member of a number of governmental and non-governmental bodies at Irish, European and international level, including the UN's Millennium Project Hunger Task Force, the Irish Hunger Task Force, the UN's Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), the Board of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the OECD Committee of Agriculture, the Mary Robinson Foundation for Climate Justice and the Irish Times Trust and Board. He is a graduate in agricultural economics from University College Dublin (UCD) and has Masters degrees from the Catholic University of Leuven and of Trinity College, Dublin.

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