IDC 2010 - Panel speaker bios

SAT, 4/10, 9:30 - 10:50 AM. Location: TBD

This panel will highlight the role of African and international militaries in Africa’s socio-economic development. In particular, pros and cons of the military serving as a direct development project/program implementing tool will be analyzed, as well as means of empowering while controlling the military to better fill a productive role in society. Such potential military roles explored could include infrastructure provision, health care, or public workforce building.

Biographies

Calestous Juma is Professor of the Practice of International Development and Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project. He also directs the Agricultural Innovation in Africa Project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is a former Executive Secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and Founding Director of the African Centre for Technology Studies in Nairobi, and he also served as Chancellor of the University of Guyana. He has been elected to several scientific academies including the Royal Society of London, the US National Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World, the UK Royal Academy of Engineering and the African Academy of Sciences. He has won several international awards for his work on sustainable development. He holds a PhD in science and technology policy studies and has written widely on science, technology, and environment. Among others, he serves on on the boards of WWF International and the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) Foundation. He is lead author of Innovation: Applying Knowledge in Development and co-editor of Engineering Change: Towards a Sustainable Future in the Developing World. He is editor of the peer-reviewed International Journal of Technology and Globalisation and International Journal of Biotechnology.

Robert E. Gribbin served as US Ambassador to Rwanda (1995-99) and Central African Republic (1992-95). Other diplomatic assignments included earlier postings in Bangui and Kigali as well as tours in Kampala, Uganda, Mombasa, Kenya and in the Department of State in the African Bureau. He was a four time delegate to UN Human Rights Commission, also twice to UN General Assembly. Since retiring Ambassador Gribbin has undertaken short term assignments as chargé d’affaires in Nigeria, Burundi, Djibouti, Chad and Mauritius and other postings in DRC, Ghana and Liberia. He is the author of In Aftermath of Genocide: the U.S. Role in Rwanda. Currently, Gribbin writes, blogs (rwandakenya.blogspot.com), lectures, plays golf, and sails.

Mbareck Diop is a retired Colonel in the Senegalese Armed Forces (SAF). After graduating from the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées of Paris, he received further military, engineering, and environmental training and education abroad in France and Italy. He was a civil engineer in the SAF Corps of Engineers, working on a variety of infrastructure projects through the "Army-Nation" program. As Senior Adviser to the President of the Republic of Senegal from 1994-2003, Diop created and chaired the National Civilian-Military Committee for Development, which established a military-public-private partnership to react to national development-related issues. He chaired several other environmental committees and is currently Chairman of the Advisory Board on Climate Change Adaptation for Africa. He also serves as Managing Director of Apave Sahel, a which specializes in risk management and control of civil industrial works, and as Director for Senegal of the NGO Institute for Transportation Policy, where he works on the development of a sustainable transportation system for the developing world.

Clarence Bouchat is a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel whose career included flying fighter aircraft, command and control, and teaching at assignments in Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, Korea, Malaysia, and the United States. He currently teaches strategy at the U.S. Army War College and geography at Harrisburg Area Community College, and he has previously taught at the University of Maryland University College and at his alma mater the U.S. Air Force Academy. He is a senior researcher for the U.S. Army's Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute, investigating topics in peace operations, stability operations, and irregular warfare. Upon retiring in 2007, after 30 years in the Air Force, he focused on Security Sector Reform in Liberia by training prospective members of the new Ministry of National Defense Staff on topics of military strategy, plans, and operations, regional studies, and basic skills needed by a functioning bureaucracy. He has since taught Africa Studies at the U.S. Army War College, written two chapters on economic development in Africa for a West Point anthology, and authored monographs for the Strategic Studies Institute on the military and development in Africa and regional security and U.S. military theater strategy.