The Atlantic Council named Abdoul Salam Bello, World Bank Group Adviser on African development and strategy, as a Visiting Fellow in its Africa Center.
From 2012 to 2014, Bello served as Chief of Staff to the African Union New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AU-NEPAD) Agency in South Africa. Previously, he worked for the Islamic Development Bank Group in Saudi Arabia and for the Renault Group in France.
Bello was in charge of the preparation of AU-NEPAD participation in G8 Summits (Camp David in the US and Lough Erne in Northern Ireland), the G20 Summit, the fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development, and the UN General Assembly (sixty-seventh to sixty-ninth sessions, from 2012 to 2014). He helped to organize several AU-NEPAD heads of state and government summits from 2012 to 2014.
At the Council, Bello’s work will focus on both West African regional and pan-African issues as well as broader themes of governance, economic growth, and development.
“We are delighted to have a young African leader like Abdoul Salam Bello working with us,” said Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham. “Not only does he bring significant experience in the top management of a major pan-African intergovernmental organization, but he will strengthen our work on political and economic issues, bringing to them a voice from Africa.”
Bello has authored various reports on AU partnerships and co-authored the Africa/G8 Accountability Report on HIV in collaboration with the AU and Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, which was subsequently endorsed by African heads of state at the 2013 and 2014 AU Summits. He also co-authored a domestic resource mobilization study in collaboration with the African Development Bank, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, and the United Nations Development Programme, which identified instruments and measures available for operationalizing regional infrastructure and agriculture initiatives.
Please email press@AtlanticCouncil.org for more information or to arrange an interview with Abdoul Salam Bello.