Abdoul Salam Bello is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. He currently serves as alternate executive director of the Africa Group II at the World Bank Group Board of Directors where he represents 23 African countries. He brings extensive experience in economic development, multilateral trade cooperation and diplomacy. Bello most recently served as senior project officer at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), leading a land restoration program in the Sahel. Prior to that, he was advisor to the executive director of the Africa Group II at the World Bank Group from 2014 to 2019.

Between 2007 and 2014, he held a series of senior positions in multilateral institutions. They included chief of staff at the New Partnership for Africa’s Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) in South Africa, and economist at the Islamic Development Bank in Saudi Arabia. Prior to that, Bello worked in the private sector, including as assistant project manager at Renault France in 2005.

Bello holds a master’s degree in International Risk Management from HEC Paris, France; a master’s degree in Management of International Activities from the University of Lyon; a master’s degree in Diplomacy and Strategic Negotiations from Paris-Sud University; and an engineer’s degree in Telecommunications from the University of Toulon, France. Bello also graduated from the Executive Education Program for Senior Managers in Government at Harvard Kennedy School, USA.

Bello has authored two books: Les Etats-Unis et l’Afrique, de l’esclavage à Obama (L’Harmattan, 2019) and La régionalisation en Afrique: Essai sur un processus d’intégration et de développement (L’Harmattan, 2017).