Panel Members
Mr. Mbeki served two terms as the second post-apartheid President of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008. He was the President of the African National Congress from 1997-2007. Mr. Mbeki held the position of Chairperson of the African Union.(2002- 2003) Mr. Mbeki holds a Masters Degree in Economics from Sussex University.
Mr. Carlos LopesMr. Carlos Lopes currently serves as the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa. He assumed this position in September 2012. Mr. Lopes previously served as Executive Director of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in Geneva and Director of the UN System Staff College in Turin at the level of Assistant Secretary-General from March 2007 to August 2012.
H.E. Mr. Olusegun Apata is the Chairman of the Coca-Cola Bottler in Nigeria, Nigerian Bottling Company Plc and has sat on the company’s Board of Directors since 2006. Ambassador Apata served for three decades in the Nigerian Diplomatic Service.. He attended the University of Lagos for his undergraduate studies while he earned his graduate degrees from the University College, Dublin and Oxford University.
Mr. Baker is the director of Global Financial Integrity, a think tank in Washington, DC and is a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy. In January 2009, Mr. Baker brought together a coalition of research and advocacy organizations and over 50 governments to form the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development, an organization which advocates for transparency in the global financial system. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School and Georgia Institute of Technology.
Dr. Zeinab Bashir el Bakri is a consultant on human development strategies working for the Government of Kuwait. She is the former vice President Sector Operations of the African Development Bank Group in Tunisia.
Abdoulaye Bio Tchané has built a thirty-year career in banking, finance and development across Africa. He has held high positions at the WAEMU Central Bank and is a former Director of the Africa Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as the former President of the West African Development Bank (BOAD). Mr Bio Tchané is also widely acknowledged as the finance minister of Benin who spearheaded clear and transparent reforms in budgeting, procurement and taxation and he has actively fought corruption.
Henrik Harboe, Director of Development Policy at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs since July 2013, was previously Norway’s Chief Negotiator in the international climate negotiations. Before that he was head of the Multilateral Bank and Finance Section of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responsible for Norway’s relationship with the World Bank and the Regional Development Banks, for global finance questions and debt relief. He has a Masters degree in Development Economics from the London School of Economics (1987) and his BSc in Economics from the University of Oslo.
Prof. Makboul is Secretary General, Ministry of Industrial Development and Investment Promotion in Algeria. He is the former director of the National Centre for the Study and Analysis of Population and Development (CENEAP), which undertakes studies and analysis in the field of economy, demography and social and cultural development. Mr. Makboul was recently elected as a member of the Committee on Governance and Popular Participation of the UNECA.
Barrister Muna is founder and former president of Transparency International (TI) Cameroon. A lawyer by training, he is President of the Pan African Lawyers Union and former president of the Cameroon Bar Association. Akere Muna is President of the African Union’s Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) and a member of several national commissions on legal reform and curbing corruption. Mr. Muna was actively involved in the TI working group that helped to draft the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption and has written a guide to the convention published by TI
The Chairperson of Action Aid Uganda, Ms. Ovonji-Odida is a human rights lawyer and activist with 21 years of experience in development work. She has worked in the public sector in law reform and on public sector ethics for eight years. Irene has been involved with ActionAid in Uganda since 2003, becoming national board Chair in 2005. She is the convener of the International Governance & Board Development Committee and was elected as International Board Chair in June 2009.