This high level panel advances the argument that in the last decade Africa has exercised its agency in global affairs. The discussion will draw on the expertise and experience of several leading African policy decision makers and practitioners to examine how robust and tangible this expression has been.

Dr Eka Ikpe, Director of the African Leadership Centre, will deliver welcome remarks.

Through an opening keynote, the dialogue sets out the context within which African agency is and can be engaged by pivotal African actors and institutions, including the African Union and various citizen formations. It then calls on senior African policy actors to critically discuss the opportunities and limitations that both enable and hinder the possibilities for harnessing and deploying Africa's agency across various national, continental and global constituencies to influence the current global climate.

This event is affiliated with ARUA-GUILD Cluster of Research Excellence on Building Capacities for Interdisciplinary Peace Research. 

Panelists

• Hanna Tetteh: UN Secretary General's Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa
• Dr Adedeji Ebo: Director and Deputy to the High Representative, UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA)
• Professor Youssef Mahmoud: Senior Advisor at International Peace Institute and leading practitioner at the African Leadership Centre, King's College London.
• Moderator: Shuvai Busuman Nyoni, Executive Director of the African Leadership Centre, Nairobi.

This event is part of Africa Week 2024 organised by the African Leadership Centre at King's. Learn more about Africa Week 2024.

This is a hybrid event. Participants can register to join the discussion online or in person.

About the speakers

Hannah Tetteh

Hannah is currently the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa. She served, since 2019, as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General to the African Union and Head of the United Nations Office to the African Union (UNOAU).  Prior to that, she served as Director-General of the United Nations Office at Nairobi.  Hannah also served in the cabinet of the Government of Ghana as Minister for Foreign Affairs during which time she was also a member of the National Security Council and the Armed Forces Council (2013-2017).  She was appointed Co-Facilitator in the High-Level Forum for the Revitalisation of the Agreement for the resolution of the conflict in South Sudan (2017-2018). 

Dr Adedeji Ebo

Adedeji (Ade) Ebo is currently Director and Deputy to the High Representative, UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA). He was previously Chief of the Conventional Arms Branch, UNODA. Ade has also served as the Director of Political Affairs in the UN Office for West Africa and Sahel (UNOWAS) from 2017-2019; and Director of Political Affairs, UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (2015–2016); Ade is a visiting professor at the School of Global Affairs, Kings College London. His latest publication is The United Nations and Security Sector Reform: Policy and Practice (co-edited with Prof Heiner Hanggi), Lit Verlag, 2020.

Professor Youssef Mahmoud

Youssef is a visiting professor at the African Leadership Centre since in 2015. He is a leading practitioner on the Centre's Practice of Leadership programme. Youssef is also senior adviser at the International Peace Institute (IPI), supporting sustainable development and peace operation programmes and serving as focal point on mediation and prevention policies and practices. He is a former UN Under-Secretary-General and has headed peace operations in Burundi, the Central African Republic and Chad.

Shuvai Busuman Nyoni

Shuvai is a Gender, Peace and Security practitioner and researcher. She currently serves as the Executive Director of the African Leadership Centre (ALC), Nairobi, Kenya. Shuvai has worked extensively with a range of regional and national policy makers, civil society actors and academics in post-conflict and transitional countries on the African continent. Her work includes investigation and documentation of sexual and gender-based violence in conflict settings. Shuvai is undertaking a PhD in Leadership and Security Studies at the University of Pretoria and King’s College London.

Dr Eka Ikpe

Eka is Director and Reader (Development Economics in Africa) at the African Leadership Centre at King's. Her research offers a critical understanding of socio-economic transformation processes which advances concept-building that centres spaces in Africa and parts of the Global South across the fields of economic development and peace and security. Current themes of interest include, developmentalism, industrial development and structural transformation, peacebuilding, post-conflict reconstruction and the economic costs of conflict and creative economies.