Themes
Olivier Ray is AFD Regional director for the Middle-East at AFD since January of 2019, and Director of the Beirut agency in charge of Lebanon and Syria at AFD since 2017.
From 2014 to 2017, he headed the French Development Agency’s (AFD) crisis prevention and post-conflict recovery unit, where he contributed to the establishment of France’s “Peace and Resilience Fund”.
He was previously Diplomatic advisor to France’s Minister of Health and Social Affairs, Marisol Touraine. In 2011-2012, he was responsible for International development at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Policy Planning Department.
Before joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Olivier Ray was Senior economist at the French Development Agency (AFD)’s Middle East and North Africa Department.
Prior to this, he worked during four years as special assistant to AFD’s CEO Jean-Michel Severino (research and publications). Jean-Michel Severino and Olivier Ray co-authored Africa’s Moment (2011, Polity Press, initially published in French in 2010), and Le Grand Basculement: la question sociale à l’échelle mondiale (Odile Jacob editions, 2011), as well as many articles on international development (“The End of ODA: Death and Rebirth of a Global Public Policy”, Center for Global Development Working Papers).
Before joining AFD, he worked for the United Nations’ Department of Peacekeeping Operations and Security Council Report, on questions of development, conflict prevention and post-conflict recovery.
Olivier Ray holds an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University, an MA in Public affairs from Sciences-Po, and a BSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science.