Member of the French Academy of Sciences and of the “National Academy of Medicine” in the USA, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, PhD, retrovirologist, Research Director at the INSERM and Professor at the Institut Pasteur until 2015, is internationally recognized for her contributions to HIV/AIDS research, for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 2008.
Today, she serves President of the board of Sidaction, Honorary President of the Institut Pasteur International Network and of the Virology Department of the Institut Pasteur and vice-president of the Think Tank “Global Health 2030” in France.
Winnie Byanyima is the Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. A passionate and longstanding champion of social justice and gender equality, Ms. Byanyima leads the United Nations efforts to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030. Ms. Byanyima believes that health care is a human right and has been an early champion of a People’s Vaccine against the coronavirus that is available and free of charge to everyone, everywhere.
Before joining UNAIDS, Ms. Byanyima served as the Executive Director of Oxfam International, a confederation of 20 civil society organisations working in more than 90 countries worldwide, empowering people to create a future that is secure, just, and free from poverty.
Ms. Byanyima was elected for three terms and served eleven years in the Parliament of her country, Uganda. She led Uganda's first parliamentary women’s caucus, championing ground-breaking gender equality provisions in the county's 1995 post-conflict constitution.
Ms. Byanyima led the establishment of the African Union Commission’s Directorate of Gender and Development and also served as Director of Gender and Development at UNDP. She founded the Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE), an influential Ugandan NGO, and has been deeply involved in building global and African coalitions on social justice issues. A global leader on inequality, Ms. Byanyima has co-chaired the World Economic Forum and served on the World Bank’s Advisory Council on Gender and Development, ILO’s Global Commission on the Future of Work and the Global Commission on Adaptation.
Makhtar Diop is the World Bank’s Vice President for Infrastructure, a position he assumed on July 1, 2018. The Vice Presidency comprises Energy & Extractives, Transport, Digital Development as well as Infrastructure Finance, Public-Private Partnerships and Guarantees. Prior to this appointment, Mr. Diop served for six years as the World Bank’s Vice President for the Africa Region.
He has also held government positions, most notably the position of Minister of Economy and Finance of Senegal. Mr. Diop holds degrees in economics from the Universities of Warwick and Nottingham in England.
Koen Doens is Director-General for International Partnerships for International Cooperation and Development at the European Commission since October 2019.
He joined the Commission in 2004 and was Head of Cabinet of Louis Michel, Commissioner in charge of Development and Humanitarian Aid during the 1st Barroso Commission (2004-2010) and Head of the Commission Spokespersons’ Service during the 2nd Barroso Commission (2010-2014). After a period as Director for EU-Africa Relations, he became Deputy Director-General responsible for Africa, Asia, Middle East/Gulf, Pacific, Latin America and Caribbean in the Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development in March 2018.
A classical philologist by training, he was a professor of Latin and Greek before becoming a Belgian diplomat. He has been posted in Syria, Iran and Russia and several Belgian ministerial cabinets.
Ali Kooli, Tunisian Minister of Economy, Finance and Investment Support.
Mr Kooli is married with two children ; he has 33 years of financial and banking experience within several financial institutions in Singapore, Japan, Jordan, France and Tunisia.
He held several positions at the Union of Arab and French Banks "UBAF" (Branch of Credit Lyonnais). He was Deputy Director of UBAF Japan and Head of Development at Société Générale, Deputy General Director and then General Director of the UIB in Tunisia.
He also held the position of Managing Director of Bank ABC Tunisie and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Arab Leasing Corporation in Algeria.
Mr. Kooli is graduated from the Institut des Hautes Etudes Commerciales in Nice (France) and holds a master's degree in management from the Ecole Supérieure de Management de Lyon.
Michel Miraillet is the Director general for Global affairs of the French Ministry of Foreign affairs since 9th March 2020. He was previously from September 2017 the French Ambassador to Brazil and to the United Arab Emirates from 2013 to 2017, after six years spent from August 2007 to August 2013 as the Director for Strategic affairs and the Defence policy Director of the French Ministry of Defense.
A career diplomat, M. Miraillet, before joining the Ministry of Defense, served as the Director for International and Strategic affairs of the Secretariat General for National Defense, an agency attached to the Prime minister’s office conducting the coordination of governmental action on issues concerning France’s internal and external security.
As a member of the French diplomatic service, Michel Miraillet held various posts abroad: deputy head of mission in Israel (2001-2004), political advisor to the French mission to Nato (1997-2000), Political counsellor in Cairo (1995-1997) and counsellor to the French mission to the United Nations in New York, in charge of security, disarmament and UNSCOM affairs (1992-1995).
He served from 1988 to 1992 in Paris as the desk officer for Iraq/Iran issues and as the deputy head of the MFA’s body in charge of the control of armament exports. From 2004 to 2006, he joined the Administration Directorate of the Quai d’Orsay as the Deputy head of the staff department.
Michel Miraillet was appointed in 2007 and in 2013 as a member of the commission drafting the French white papers on defence and national security issued in 2008 and 2013.
He is graduated from ENA, France’s school for public administration, the Paris Institute for Political Sciences and various Paris universities (Masters in law and economics, Bachelor in Arts).
He was made a knight in the order of the Legion of Honour and in the National Order of Merit.
Environmental activist and member of Chad’s pastoralist Mbororo community, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim began advocating for Indigenous rights and environmental protection at age 16, founding the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad (AFPAT). Her vision is to grow support for both traditional knowledge and science to improve resilience to climate change especially for rural communities.
She is a member of the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee (IPACC) and served as co-chair of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change during the historic UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris. She advances environmental protection for Indigenous peoples by participating in international policy dialogues held around the three Rio Conventions; Climate Change (UNFCCC), Biodiversity (CBD), and Desertification (UNCCD). Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim’s work with indigenous communities at the local and global level has achieved broad recognition and support including, the Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award, the 2020 Refugee International’s Refugees International Holbrooke Award and the Daniel Mitterrand Prize 2017.
She accepted her appointment as a UN SDG Advocate, Conservation International Board member, Lui-Walton Senior Fellow, member of the Earthshot Prize Council, EAT advisory Board, Ambassador of the EDEN Project and National Geographic Explorer. She was recognized by BBC as a top 100 women leader and by TIME's Women Leaders in Climate Change and Brut media produced her bio spot Here. Hindou’s TED talk on Indigenous knowledge meets science to solve climate change has surpassed more than 1 million views.
Jérémie Pellet joined Expertise France in December 2018. He was previously Deputy Director General of the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), in charge of the agency's activities with local authorities, public companies, the private sector and NGOs, and coordinating strategy, communication, partnerships, research and innovation. He was Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of Proparco, the AFD Group's private sector subsidiary, and Chairman of its Investment Committee. He was also a member of the Board of Directors of Expertise France and BPI France Financement.
In 2009, Jérémie joined BNP Paribas as Head of Regulatory Affairs for Corporate and Investment Banking, in charge of setting up Basel 3, before joining the bank's Fixed Income market department in 2012. He joined Manuel Valls on his arrival in Matignon in 2014 to monitor economic and financial issues, including the Macron law, the proposed merger between AFD and CDC and the creation of Expertise France.
Graduate from the Institute of Political Studies in Strasbourg, he began his career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, before entering the National School of Administration (graduated from Leopold Sédar Senghor). Upon graduation, he joined the Ministry of Economy and Finance. After spending 3 years at the Merger Control and Aid Office of the French Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention Directorate, he joined CDC Entreprises (now BPifrance Investissement), a private equity subsidiary of the Caisse des Dépôts Group, as Investment Director, where he manages a portfolio of investments in Southern France, Corsica, the French overseas departments and territories and the Maghreb, relations with Proparco and joint venture capital funds with AFD overseas.
An expert in economics and international financial institutions, Rémy Rioux has held high-level positions in a career devoted to development and Africa. After serving as chief of staff of the French Economy and Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici, he was appointed by Laurent Fabius Deputy General Secretary of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Development, and coordinated the finance agenda for the French presidency of COP21.
Rémy Rioux started heading the French Development Agency (AFD) in 2016, which has seen its mandate expanded and its resources inceased, and was reappointed by President Macron in 2019. In 2017, he also became Chairman of the International Development Finance Club (IDFC) – the leading group of 26 national and regional development banks and a large provider of development and climate finance globally.
In November 2020, Rémy Rioux hosted the Finance in Common Summit in Paris gathering, for the first time ever, the 450 public development banks of the world, which now form a global coalition to collectively shift their strategies, investment patterns, activities and operating modalities to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the objectives of the Paris Agreement.
Rémy Rioux is the author of Reconciliations, an essay in which he calls for a reinvented development policy aligned with the SDGs and the Paris Agreement.
Laurence Tubiana is CEO of the European Climate Foundation (ECF). In addition to her role at ECF, she is the Chair of the Board of Governors at the French Development Agency (AFD), and a Professor at Sciences Po, Paris. Before joining ECF, Laurence was France’s Climate Change Ambassador and Special Representative for COP21, and as such a key architect of the landmark Paris Agreement. Following COP21, she was appointed High Level Champion for climate action.
Laurence brings decades of expertise. From 1997—2002, she served as Senior Adviser on the Environment to the French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. From 2009—2010, she created and led the newly established Directorate for Global Public Goods at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
She founded in 2002 and directed until 2014 the Institute of Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI). She has held academic positions including Sciences Po and as Professor of International Affairs at Columbia University. She has been a member of numerous boards and scientific committees, including the Chinese Committee on the Environment and International Development (CCICED).
Fatimata Wane is a senior journalist working for France 24, an international news channel based in Paris since 2006. She covers mainly african affairs, including politics, economics and culture. Previously she started her career by joining the investigation cell of Canal+ “90 Minutes” with the awarded french journalist Paul Moreira. Then she worked for various french african press such as Africa International. Since 2006, She has interviewed for France 24, high profile guests, mostly african presidents or artists and covered the most important cultural african events. Since 2018 Fatimata has run a monthly show called “La Grande Palabre” about african concerns from History to Culture through Politics etc. And she also hosts a weekly segment on african culture in the morning show of France 24. In May 2018 she received an award for “Best TV journalist of the year” as the one who best highlighted the african culture. The prize was given in Paris at the Unesco in May 2018.
She is currently presenting the African News bulletin on Fridays, called “Journal de l’Afrique”. In 2019, she founded A AC55 | Action Africa Culture, a panafrican initiative aiming to promote culture made in and made of Africa. AAC55 aspires to establish a multidisciplinary and international network of cultural actors, which is essential for the development of cultural and creative industries. This project will lead to the largest african culture summit in Dakar on decembre 2021.
