Amb. (ret.) Hesham Youssef

Amb. Hesham Youssef is a Co-Founder of Diplomeds – The Council for Mediterranean Diplomacy, a Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, and a former career diplomat with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt. He was posted to the Egyptian Embassy in Canada and the Egyptian Mission in Geneva where he focused on economic and trade issues in the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. He was a member of the Cabinet of the Egyptian Minister for Foreign Affairs and previously taught at Cairo University, the American University in Cairo, and Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. He also served as a senior official in the Arab League, as Official Spokesman, Chief of Staff to Secretary General Amr Moussa, and Senior Advisor to Secretary General Dr. Nabil Elaraby on issues pertaining to crisis management and the reform of the Arab League. Besides, he served as assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian, Cultural and Social Affairs of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). His areas of expertise include conflict resolution in the Middle East and in particular the Arab-Israeli conflict, reconciliation in Iraq and the situation in Sudan, reform in the Arab world, and the fragility and humanitarian situation in the Islamic world, in particular in Somalia, the Palestinian Territories, Chad, Niger and Myanmar.