Working Group

Michael FUCHS has extensive experience in financial sector development. Working predominantly in Afria and East Asia Michael’s work in recent years has focused on on deepening markets for productive finance of enterprises, infrastructure and housing, on reforming the role of development finance, and on tailoring regulation and supervision of the financial sector to the needs of emerging markets. Until June 2013 Michael was Advisor and Acting Sector Manager in the Finance and Private Sector Department of the World Bank's Africa Region. Starting in 2002 Michael worked extensively on financial sector development in the Africa Region and led a large number of financial sector assessments. Before joining the Africa Region Michael worked for 8 years in the World Bank's East and Central Asia Region. Prior to the World Bank Michael was employed by the Danish Central Bank and the Danish Ministry of Finance. He has his PhD and MA from the University of Copenhagen and his BA from the University of York (UK).

Slaheddine SAIDI joined the African Development Bank (AfDB) in 2008 as a statistician with more than 20 years’ various and ranging experiences in official statistics, banking, insurance, business and in the academic field. He worked under the frameworks of AfDB’S statistical Capacity Building Program (SCB), providing a valuable contribution on various statistical subjects, in particular data dissemination and exchange through the Open Data Platform in African countries, infrastructure statistics through the Africa Infrastructure Knowledge Program (AIKP), regional integration, financial market statistics and tourism statistics. He is graduated from the high school of business (IHEC Carthage – Tunisia), and obtained an MSc degree in Economics and Statistics from the Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Administration Economique (ENSAE), Paris and a master’s degree in Applied Mathematics in Economics (DEA Matématiques Ammpliquées aux Sciences Economiques MASE) from the University of Paris-Dauphine, Paris, France.

Omolola AMOUSSOU is a Principal Research Economist in the Microeconomic, Institutional and Development Impact Division of the African Development Bank ("AfDB"). She holds a M.A. and PhD in Economics from Vanderbilt University and has several years of experience in financial consulting. Omolola joined the African Development Bank from the Washington DC metro office of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP ("PwC") as a manager of the Financial Risk Management Practice. Prior to that, she was a Transfer Pricing professional in the Atlanta office of PwC and has also taught at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Omolola’s primary research and academic interests are in the areas of finance and financial risk management, with a secondary focus on trade and entrepreneurship. Her work has been published in major international economics and business journals such as the Journal of International Economics and the Journal of African Business.

Mustapha BOUZAÏENE holds an engineering degree in statistics and economics and a « Mastère » label degree in economic and statistics modelization from Ecole National de la Statistique et de l’Administration Economique (ENSAE - France). He spent most of his career as a civil servant at the tunisian National Statistics Institute, working for more than twenty years on official statistics. He has been consultant expert with several international organizations and in particular with the statistics department of the African Development Bank monitoring several statistical capacity building projects.

José Albuquerque DE SOUSA is Assistance Professor of Finance at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) since 2018. His research focuses on financial markets, institutional investors and sustainable finance. Before his PhD studies in Finance, José was an architect and a Real Estate analyst at ABN Amro Bank B.V. José has a PhD and MSc in Finance from the Rotterdam School of Management (Erasmus University Rotterdam). During the Fall of 2017 he was a visiting scholar at the Haas School of Business (University of California at Berkeley).

Amel KCHOUK holds an engineering degree in statistics and economics from Ecole Supérieure de la Statistique et de l’Analyse de l'Information (ESSAI - Tunisia). She has been consultant with the statistics department of the African Development Bank since 2012, collaborating on several statistical projects.

Lisa KLINGER is an advisor at GIZ´s financial systems development team advising Germany´s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) on long-term finance and sustainable finance topics. She also works with local and regional institutions such as the AfDB to develop sustainable financial markets in partner countries. Prior to joining GIZ, Lisa worked at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) advising governments of Eastern Europe and Central Asia on reforms for economic transformation. Lisa holds a MSc in Economics from the University of Cologne.

Vimal PARMAR is a Senior Financial Markets Specialist at FSD Africa. He has extensive experience of over 15 years and is passionate about climate finance, poverty reduction, environmental conservation and sustainable finance/development. Vimal’s work experience spans across Africa, Middle East and global firms responsible for Africa and Frontier Market funds. His expertise lies in financial services sector, capital markets, climate finance, sustainable development, Fintech and research. His specialities range from technical assistance, grants, investments in sustainable development capital, financial integrity, advisory and research.

Abdelkader Benbrahim is the Partnership Coordinator of Making Finance Work for Africa. Until June 2020, Mr. Benbrahim was a Financial Sector Advisor leading MFW4A’s Financial Inclusion work stream. His work focused on positively influencing policy makers to address policy and regulatory constraints for digital financial services and inclusive finance. He also lead MFW4A’s efforts in remittances and housing finance. 

Prior to joining MFW4A, he worked for Global Affairs Canada supporting its Information and Communication Technology development function, serving in both the President’s and Minister’s offices. He holds a master’s degree in Information Systems and Digital Innovation from London School of Economics and Political Science Management Studies and a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Ottawa. He is multilingual communicator in Arabic, English and French.

Oluwatoyin Alake  is the Financial Sector Advisor at MFW4A under the Long-Term Finance pillar. Olu is a financial markets professional having worked across banking, investment and capital markets in the last 14 years. Prior to joining MFW4A, Olu was Head of Secondary Markets at the Nigerian Stock Exchange where she held oversight responsibility of the exchange’s secondary market business across equities, exchange traded funds, fixed income and derivatives product markets. Olu also worked as a consultant for the World Bank’s FCI-LTF team and her contribution to local capital market development earned her a place at the IFC-Milken Institute Capital Market Fellowship.