Ghazi Ben Ahmed

Ghazi Ben Ahmed is the Director of the German Marshall Fund Tunis initiative and the Coordinator of the LEND Initiative for Tunisia. He is also the founder of the Club de Tunis, a Tunisian based think tank aiming to help policymakers to device strategies for economic growth and regional development, and to empower both the private sector and NGOs in Tunisia and North Africa as an engine for regional integration, job creation and shared prosperity.
Previously he was the Lead Trade Expert in the African Development Bank (AfDB) working in the private sector department of the Bank. He was in charge of the $1 billion Trade Finance Initiative of the Bank. He received the “Highly Commended” prize for the Best Development Finance Institution (DFI) in Africa at the Trade Finance Magazine 2010 Awards for Excellence, the Trade Finance Deal of the year 2010 and the Trade Finance Bank/House of the year award 2010.
Before joining the AfDB, he was employed at the UNCTAD, the United Nation Agency for Trade and Development, in the Africa and LDC Division, as Senior Advisor, providing support to African trade negotiators in multilateral trade negotiations and regional trading arrangements. He provided economic studies and reports; elaborated the Diagnostic Trade Integration Studies and assisted the countries in mainstreaming trade into the national development plans under the Integrated Framework.
He has also worked for almost 10 years in the European Commission in Brussels, in several Directorates-Generals: Trade, EuropeAid and External Relations, responsible for trade issues, EU trade and development policy, textile negotiations, macroeconomic analysis, structural adjustment and institutional building in the Mediterranean countries. He was also responsible for the task force on market access and non-tariff barriers and the High Level Dialogue between the EU and China.
He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Montpellier I (France).