Details

The following experts will be present:

Col. (ER) Babacar Diouf is currently a Special Advisor to the General Director of the Senior Level Centre for Defense and Security Studies (CHEDS) in Dakar (Senegal) and Director of its Research Department. His areas of interest include peace and security, human rights and child protection and rights. He has worked as a facilitator for many NGOs, for example the United Nations Institute for Disarmament research (UNIDIR) and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. Col. Diouf holds an aeronautical degree from the Naval Postgraduate school in Monterey, USA. He has been awarded with the O2 MONUC commemoration medal.

Col. Koffi Daniel Konan is an UN Officer in the Logistics Division of the General Staff of the Republican Forces in Côte d'Ivoire (FRCI). He is in charge of UN equipment and pre-deployment training for external operations. He served as an instructor and training officer for the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) from 2013 to 2014. He holds a diploma from the Zambakro Armed Forces School and has been awarded with the Medal of the Ivorian Armed Forces.

Dr. Botiagne Marc Essis is the Head of the Department of Political Science at the Institut Universitaire d’Abidjan and Deputy Director of the University Press of the University of Science and Technology in Côte d’Ivoire. He holds a Ph.D in Political Science from the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich. Since 2012 Dr. Essis has been serving as an Instructor in Political Science at the Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny. Dr. Essis is the Managing Editor of the “Ivorian Review of Governance and Strategic Studies (RIGES)”.

Tinko Weibezahl has been the Director of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation’s (KAS) Security Policy Dialogue Program in Sub-Saharan Africa based in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire since August 2015. Previously, he served at KAS Headquarters in Berlin as a member of the Europe/North America Department (2013-2015), as KAS Country Director in Afghanistan (2011-2013) and in the Democratic Republic of Congo (2009-2011). He has worked as a legislative advisor in the German Parliament and served as an officer in the German Army where he obtained the rank of Major and still serves as Reservist. He holds a Master’s in History and Political Science from the University of Potsdam in Germany.

Please find more details in the official invitation attached on the right.