Experts
This individual is not a direct affiliate of the Policy Center for the New South. They have contributed to one or more of our events, publications, or projects. Please contact the individual at their home institution.
Gilles Olakounlé Yabi is the founder and CEO of WATHI, the West Africa Citizen Think Tank launched in 2015. WATHI is a unique participative and multidisciplinary citizen-focused think tank on West African issues (www.wathi.org). Gilles Yabi worked as senior political analyst and later as West Africa Project Director of the International Crisis Group, a think tank dedicated to conflict prevention and resolution. He led the research, policy, advocacy and media work of Crisis Group in West Africa and worked particularly on the political crises and conflicts in Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mali and Nigeria. Holding a Ph.D in Development economics from the University of Clermont-Ferrand in France, Gilles Yabi also worked as a journalist for the weekly magazine Jeune Afrique in Paris. Dr Yabi has authored dozens of articles and book chapters on African political and economic issues. He ensures a strong media presence for WATHI, namely through a weekly column broadcast “Ça fait débat avec WATHI”, on Radio France International (RFI), the most listened and influential international radio station in African French-speaking countries. Gilles is also a non-resident scholar at the Africa Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace based in Washington DC, US.
