Africa has some of the fastest growing economies in the world requiring massive investment in new infrastructure such as transportation, housing, and energy to keep up with growth. Building infrastructure requires financial investment, technical expertise, and resource capacity partnerships. Public-private-partnerships are increasingly viewed as an essential to economic development and solution to government limitations. This panel will focus what role of public-private-partnerships in the economic development of Africa and how existing resources can be leveraged to impact change and economic growth.
Olivier Donat Andriamahefaparany is currently a Mason Fellow Mid-Career MPA student at Harvard Kennedy School.
In the last 12 years, Mr. Andriamahefaparany took different high level responsibilities in the Malagasy Government:
Secretary General of the Ministry of Tourism affairs from May 2002 until February 2004, Secretary General of the Municipality of Antananarivo City from Mars 2004 until December 2004, Minister of Energy, Mines, Potable water and Sanitation from December 2004 until September 2007. In September 2007, he was elected Member of Parliament in the National Assembly of Madagascar where he was member of the two commissions “Infrastructure” and “Finance and Economy”. His constituency was the fifth district of the Capital City Antananarivo.
He received a Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Applied Sciences of Constance, Germany, a Master of Science in Renewable Energies from the University of Oldenburg in Germany and a master’s degree in business administration from the Lancaster University Management School, UK. From July 2009 until June 2010, he was Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow at the University of Minnesota, Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
Sean de Cleene is the Senior Vice President of Global Initiatives, Strategy and Business Development for Yara International, the world’s leading global crop nutrition company where he is responsible for coordinating the company’s Creating Impact business development strategy. He is currently based in Belgium, having lived for 12 years in Africa and 7 years in China. Sean is a member of the Global Agenda Council on Climate Change, on the World Economic Forum’s Board for the New Vision for Agriculture. He is Co-Chair of Grow Africa, on the executive committee of the African Green Revolution Forum, initiator of both the Beira Agricultural Growth Corridor and the Mozambique and Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania, as well as visiting practitioner at Harvard Kennedy School CSR Initiative.
Dr. Abdu Mukhtar is currently a Mason Fellow/Mid-Career MPA Candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School, and has acquired extensive experience in both the private and public sectors. Until recently he was the Group Managing Director/CEO of the Abuja Investments Company where he chaired the Boards of a dozen subsidiaries across several sectors and was nominated for the Nigeria’s CEO of the Year Award by Thisday Newspapers in 2009. Prior to that, Dr. Mukhtar had held several positions including Senior Special Assistant on Economic Matters to Nigeria’s FCT Minister; Special Adviser to the pioneer Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC); Transaction A
dviser at the Nigerian Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE); Consultant with Pittiglio Rabin Todd & Mcgrath (PRTM) Consulting, Boston; Consultant, Harvard Centre For International Development and Research Associate at the Boston University Medical Centre. While serving in these capacities, Dr. Mukhtar handled very strategic and challenging tasks and transactions in various sectors across Africa, Asia, North America and the Middle East, and gained experience in privatization, public-private partnerships, public service reforms, service delivery improvement initiatives, venture capital, management consulting, entrepreneurship and non-governmental organizations.
Dr. Mukhtar attended the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria College of Medicine and the Boston University School of Medicine where he bagged Doctor of Medicine degree (MB.BS) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, respectively. He also obtained a Masters Degree in Business Administration (MBA) from Harvard Business School and attended certificate courses at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, INSEAD, Oxford University and the African Leadership Institute, South Africa. Dr. Mukhtar is the recipient of several prestigious awards and was profiled in the “2000 Outstanding Scientists of the 20th Century” and the Millennium edition of “Who’s Who in America: Science and Engineering”. He is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and sits on the Boards of several non-profit organizations including LEAP Africa, African University of Science and Technology (AUST) Abuja and the Students for the Advancement of Global
Entrepreneurship (SAGE) Global Advisory Board.
His Excellency Elkanah Odembo comes to Washington after serving as the Ambassador of the Republic of Kenya to France since January 2009. Prior to representing Kenya abroad, Ambassador Odembo held senior level positions at philanthropic and non-governmental organizations in East Africa for more than two decades. Advocating for human rights and social Justice has always been at the core of Ambassador Odembo’s work. He was the founding director of Ufadhili Trust, a Nairobi based organization that promotes philanthropy, the use of local resources for social development, especially through corporate social responsibility, cross-sector partnerships, technical assistance and policy research.
Prior to founding Ufadhili, Ambassador Odembo served as a consultant to the Ford
Foundation’s Africa Philanthropy Initiative. For 10 years, he was the East African Representative for the International NGO, World Neighbours. Odembo began his development career as a Research and Training Officer at the African Medical Research Foundation. He later became Chairman of the Kenya Community Development Foundation, a lead facilitator for the Kenya Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper Consultation Process. Between 1994 and 1998, Odembo was the first Substantive Chairman of the Kenya NGO Council.
He has served as a distinguished member of the National Advisory Committee for Health Research, the NGO Co-ordination Board of Kenya, and the National Committee for Social Dimensions of Development. Additionally, he was one of the founding members of the NGO Coalition for East Africa and has served on the Boards of several National and International NGOs. Ambassador Odembo is a Senior Fellow of the Synergos Institute, a non-profit organization based in New York committed to reducing global poverty by fostering partnerships among government, business, civil society
and local communities. He is also a Fellow of the Africa Leadership Initiative, a program of the Aspen Institute’s Global Leadership Network. In June 2010, Ambassador Odembo received the Common Good Award, from his Alma-Mater, Bowdoin College. Ambassador Odembo has a bachelor’s degree in biology from Bowdoin College, Maine, USA, and a Masters in Public Health from the University of Texas, Texas, USA. Ambassador Odembo and his wife, Aoko Midiwo-Odembo, have two children.
Dr. Nicolas P. Retsinas (Moderator) is a Senior Lecturer in Real Estate at the Harvard Business School where he teaches courses in housing finance and real estate in frontier markets. Mr. Retsinas is also Director Emeritus of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, a collaborative venture of the Graduate School of Design and the Harvard Kennedy School, and a Lecturer in Housing Studies at the Graduate School of Design.
Prior to his Harvard appointment, Retsinas served as Assistant Secretary for Housing-Federal Housing Commissioner at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and as Director of the Office of Thrift Supervision. Mr. Retsinas also served on the Board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Housing Finance Board and the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation. He received a Meritorious Service Award from the US Treasury Department in 1997. He also received the Excellence in Public Service Award from the Rental Housing Association in 1998 and the Housing Leadership Award from the National Low Income Housing Coalition in 2001. He is in the National Housing Hall of Fame and was named one of the most influential people in real estate by the National Association of Realtors, in home building byBUILDER magazine, and in multifamily housing by Multi-Housing News. In 2008, he was inducted into the Affordable Housing Hall of Fame and in 2009 was named by BUILDER magazine as one of the top 30 innovators in the home building industry in the past 30 years. In 2010, Bloomberg Business Week named him one of the 50 most powerful people in real estate. In 2011, Inman News named him as one of the 100 most influential real estate leaders and the National Housing Conference named him Person of the Year.
Mr. Retsinas also served the State of Rhode Island as the Executive Director of the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation from 1987 to 1993. He received his master’s degree in city planning from Harvard University and his AB in economics from New York University. In 2008, he received an honorary Doctorate in Public Service from Rhode Island College.
Mr. Retsinas serves on the Board of Trustees for Enterprise Community Partners, and is on the Board of Directors of Community Development Trust, Inc., Freddie Mac, and the Center for Responsible Lending. He chairs the Providence Housing Authority and is a past Chair of the Board of Directors of Habitat for Humanity International. In 2012, Retsinas was named to the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Housing Commission.
Mr. Retsinas has lectured and written extensively on housing, community development and banking issues. He has co-edited Low-Income Homeownership: Examining the Unexamined Goal (2002), Building Assets, Building Credit: Creating Wealth in Low-Income Communities (2005),Revisiting Rental Housing: Policies, Programs, and Priorities (2008), Borrowing to Live: Consumer and Mortgage Credit Revisited (2008) and Moving Forward: The Future of Consumer Credit and Mortgage Finance (2011). He has also co-authored Opportunity and Progress: A Bipartisan Platform for National Housing Policy (2004) and Our Communities, Our Homes: Pathways to Housing and Homeownership in America’s Cities and States (2007). He is a Fellow at the National Academy for Public Administration.
