NoScript

Gilles Yabi

Project Director, West Africa
Dakar, Senegal

Before returning to Crisis Group as the West Africa Project Director in January 2011, Gilles Olakounlé Yabi was an independent researcher and consultant in the fields of conflict analysis, peacekeeping operations and political governance in West Africa. His consultancy assignments included a research project on UN peacekeeping operations in Cote d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone with the Madrid-based think-tank FRIDE, an assessment of the strategy of the Open Society Initiative in West Africa (OSIWA) and a study on the management of political crises in Guinea and Guinea-Bissau by the West African regional organisation ECOWAS. He also published several articles on politics in West African countries.  

From 2004 to 2008, Gilles was political analyst with Crisis Group’s West Africa Project based in Dakar (Senegal). He was in particular responsible for the research and report writing on Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea. He also contributed to the research on conflict and instability in Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Sahel region. Before joining Crisis Group in 2004, Gilles worked as a journalist for Jeune Afrique, a weekly magazine edited in Paris specialising on African political and economic affairs. A national of Benin Republic, he holds a Doctorate in Development Economics from the University of Clermont-Ferrand and a master’s degree in International Economics from the University of Paris I Sorbonne.

Gilles’s recent publications include:

  • The Role of ECOWAS in Managing Political Crises and Conflict, the Cases of Guinea and Guinea Bissau, Peace and Security Series, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, September 2010
  • Investissements Directs Etrangers et Croissance: Théories et Analyse Econométrique appliquée aux Pays en Développement, Editions Universitaires Européennes, September 2010
  •  “Côte d’Ivoire: Towards Critical Elections for Peace”, (with Andrew Goodwin), in From Civil Strife to Peace Building: Examining Private Sector Involvement in West African Reconstruction, Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), Wilfrid Laurier University Press, October 2009
  • “Côte d’Ivoire” and “Sierra Leone” chapters in Security Council Resolutions under Chapter VII: Design, Implementation and Accountabilities, the Cases of Afghanistan, Côte d’Ivoire, Kosovo and Sierra Leone, Blanca Antonini (Ed.), Foundation for International Relations and External Dialogue (FRIDE), Madrid, September 2009