Bio: Souleymane Balde is a Development Economist recently retired from the UN with expertise in multi-sector development programming, management and evaluation acquired over more than thirty years of developing, managing and evaluating UNDP (United Nations Development Program) and UN Inter-agency development programs. He has worked in more than twenty countries on four continents - Africa, Central America, South Asia and the Middle East. He served as Chief Technical Advisor of the Senior Management/ Advisory Team of the National Commission for Resettlement Rehabilitation Reconstruction (Sierra Leone); the Technical Working Group on Demobilization and Reintegration (Angola, Sierra Leone); UN Inter-agency Recovery Programs in Iraq after the first gulf-war (1991-92), Somalia, Belize, Eritrea, Sri Lanka, and East Timor. He recruited and provided training to Program teams of up to 100 staff with budgets of up to $25 millions. Souleymane represented UNDP in various international conferences and symposia on HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB, including: the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB, held in New York, the AU Special Heads of State Summit held in Abuja Nigeria, the Central Asia Regional Conference on HIV/AIDS held in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Souleymane received a BA in economics with a fellowship award for graduate studies from Vassar College, a Masters Degree in Development Economics and an Advanced Certificate in International Economics from New York University. He is a holder of a Certificate in Environment Economics from the Summer Program of Harvard University Institute of International Development (HIID). He is fully bilingual (French and English) with basic knowledge of Portuguese. He considers his academic background and extensive hand-on experience providing training and mentoring to junior and middle level staff and managers and beneficiaries of UN programs as key personal asset.