RAMA YADE

Rama Yade is director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center and senior fellow for the Europe Center. A seasoned political figure who has over a decade of experience working in French, European and international politics, she is also a teacher of African affairs at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Morocco and, since 2017, at Sciences Po Paris. Prior to joining the Council, she was a consultant for the World Bank, advising the institution on education, youth, sports, human capital, and disability issues in Africa. She also has strong experience in the private sector as an editor in London, and as director for development at a French consulting firm in CSR. Rama Yade began her career as a parliamentary high civil servant in the French Senate, where she was a senior legal advisor for the Social Affairs Committee between 2000 and 2007. In 2006, Rama was appointed by the then French presidential party UMP as a national delegate for the Francophonie. At the age of thirty, she was appointed as the French deputy minister for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights, making her the first woman of African descent to become a member of the French government. She was subsequently appointed to the position of deputy minister of sports. In this role, she led the campaign for all French sports federations to sign a charter against homophobia in sports and to get more involved in equal pay for female athletes. In 2010, Rama Yade was appointed as the ambassador of France to UNESCO. Ambassador Yade received a master’s degree in Political Science and Public Affairs from Sciences Po Paris.