Mali: Oulie Keita, the new Executive Director of Greenpeace Africa

Oulie Keita is the new Executive Director of Greenpeace in Africa, the international NGO network committed to protecting the environment. Appointed on March 1st, the international development expert, of Malian origin, who has twenty years of experience to her credit, will coordinate the implementation of Greenpeace’s strategy in Africa.

It was after an “intensive and competitive recruitment process”, says Greenpeace on its website, that the Malian was appointed as Executive Director of the organization in Africa, replacing Paul Ngugi, who had been acting executive director of Greenpeace Africa since September 2022. Her appointment comes particularly at a crucial time, when the organization has embarked on a process to move to another stage in its fight for environmental justice. She will have to meet several environmental challenges facing Africa, among others: deforestation in the Congo Basin, overfishing in West Africa, dependence on fuels in South and East Africa…

Prior to joining Greenpeace, Oulie Keita worked on policy, advocacy and lobbying issues at several levels. She was the Executive Director of YouthConnekt (YCA) Hub, a UNDP and Rwandan government program aimed at providing relevant solutions to young people in the Global South. Before that, she was the Director for Francophone West Africa of the ONE Campaign, an NGO fighting extreme poverty and disease in Africa. She also created the organisation’s Francophone Africa Office. Prior to ONE, she worked for 3 years as Director of Programming for Freedom House in Mali, an organization that studies the extent of democracy in the world and has carried out several advocacy actions for the respect of women’s rights/Human Rights in Mali…., particularly in a post-conflict context.

Before that, she worked for UNDP in several countries, including Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, DRC, Chad, Mali… She also worked for other organisations, such as USAID from 2006 to 2008; Unops as Regional Director of Partnerships and Development and Gender Focal Point in Senegal from 2008 to 2012; and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars from 2003 to 2005 as Program Associate.

Oulie Keita graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in international relations and business from the University of Maryland in 2003; a Masters in Management of Public Nonprofit Organizations in 2005 from Regis University and a PhD in Arts, International Relations and Business from the University of Maryland in 2022.