Mvemba Phezo Dizolele Joins CSIS as Senior Fellow and Director of the Africa Program

WASHINGTON, November 29, 2021: The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is pleased to announce that Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, former Africa senior adviser at the International Republican Institute (IRI), has joined CSIS as senior fellow and director of the Africa Program. Dizolele has been a non-resident senior associate with the CSIS Africa Program for over three years.

“Mvemba’s leadership will add to the strength of our Africa Program,” said Dr. John J. Hamre, president and CEO of CSIS. “His expertise and range of experience will further the program’s research and analysis on the major elements of U.S. policy toward Africa.”

Dizolele joins as senior fellow and director of the CSIS Africa Program after two and a half years at IRI. Before his role at IRI, he served as the course coordinator for central and southern Africa at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute from 2016 to 2019. Since 2012, Dizolele has also served as a lecturer in African studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He was a national fellow and a distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution from 2008 to 2015.

Dizolele has testified in both chambers of the U.S. Congress, as well as at the UN Security Council. He has served as an international election monitor and delegate in several countries, including Nigeria, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he was also embedded with UN peacekeepers in Ituri and South Kivu as a reporter. Dizolele’s analyses have been published in the New York Times, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, Forbes, and other outlets, and he has been a guest analyst on PBS, NPR, BBC, and Al Jazeera. Dizolele is also a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, and he is fluent in French, Norwegian, Spanish, Swahili, Kikongo, and Lingala and proficient in Danish and Swedish.

“I am honored to join the Africa Program at CSIS. From human and mineral resources to climate change and security, Africa’s aggregate contribution to the welfare of the world has never been more evident. Yet, despite their resources, as a block, African countries struggle to assert themselves as key players and partners in world affairs,” said Dizolele. “I look forward to working with the impressive Africa team and my CSIS colleagues to help bridge the wide policy gap between the strategic and economic interests of the industrialized nations and those of African countries, particularly the aspirations of the populations and the high demand for better governance.”

Dizolele holds an international MBA in economics, strategy, and international business, and an MPP in international development and economic policy from the University of Chicago, as well as a bachelor’s degree in political science and French from Southern Utah University.