In collaboration with STAIR and OxSID, with:
Dr. Alex Vines OBE: led the Africa Programme at Chatham House since 2002 and became Research Director of Regions and Risk in 2023. He has chaired the UN Panel of Experts on Côte d’Ivoire from 2005 to 2007 and was a member of the UN Panel of Experts on Liberia from 2001 to 2003. He was also a member of the Commonwealth Observer Group to Mozambique in 2019 (and Ghana in 2016) and a UN election officer in Mozambique (1994) and Angola (1992). He has extensively studied, worked, and taught on African affairs for more than 30 years, and was awarded an OBE in 2008 in recognition of his work that includes founding and developing Chatham House’s Africa programme. Prior to joining Chatham House Alex was at Human Rights Watch where his work included business and human rights.
Dr. Emmanuel Ikechukwu Umeonyirihoa: polyglot, researcher, Sino-Africa relations expert, and entrepreneur. He is a member of the Organisation of African Academic Doctors (OAAD), where he coordinates the Africa-Sino Research Group. He has published articles on Africa and China issues, the IMF, the World Bank, and diplomatic relations. Previously, he was the first ever Igbo Language lecturer at the African Studies Centre of the University of Oxford. He is currently also working on more standard books and other learning materials for teaching and promoting the Igbo language and culture across the globe and the people-to-people relationship between Africa and China, for which he was awarded various recognitions.
Hannah Grupp: Analyst at the Africa Chief Economist Office at the World Bank. Previously, she was the International Affairs Officer for Germany’s biggest political youth organization Junge Union and worked on Angela Merkel’s election campaign in 2017. She studied Economics at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and later completed her Master’s degree in International Economics and International Relations at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). She is currently working on a research project titled “The potential and prospects of German FDI in African economies amidst geoeconomic fragmentation.”
Nicholas Lippolis: final-year DPhil candidate in Politics at DPIR and Wolfson College. In addition, he is a researcher at the Centre for the Study of African Economies, Department of Economics; a fellow at the Oxford Martin Programme on African Governance; and the co-convenor of the Oxford University China-Africa Network. Prior to this, he has also been a visiting researcher at the Centre de Recherches Internationales (CERI) at Sciences Po Paris, and was part of a project aiming to reshape the policy agenda on industrialization in Africa at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. He has consulted for the World Bank and previously worked in macroeconomic research on emerging markets at Goldman Sachs in London. Nicolas has provided written commentary on economic and development policy for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Oxford Analytica, Our World in Data, and the Elcano Royal Institute, among others. Interviews, quotes and references to Nicolas’ work have appeared various outlets, including the South China Morning Post.