Arnauld Antoine Akodjènou
Arnauld Antoine Akodjènou (born in 1950), a native of Benin, is a long-life humanitarian and diplomat, currently serving as Senior Adviser for Africa at the Kofi Annan Foundation specifically working on the Democracy and Electoral Integrity Initiative. Prior to this he served as the Regional Refugee Coordinator and Special Adviser to the High Commissioner for refugees for the South Sudan Situation at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He has held numerous positions in the United Nations Department of Peace Operations, in Côte d'Ivoire (ONUCI) and Mali (MINUSMA), and as a Deputy Special Representative of UN Secretary General. His career with the UNHCR spans over twenty-five years. Akodjènou is widely credited for creating enabling policies and agreements that saw the return of more than two million refugees back to Sierra Leone between 2000 - 2003. Further to this, he oversaw the return of over a hundred thousand refugees from Algeria, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mauritania back to their homes in Mali. He was at the helm during the peak of the Great Lakes emergency operations in the mid-nineties, as well as those of Cote D'Ivoire and Liberia in the early 2000s, making him one of Africa's most prominent