Rafat Al-Akhali

Rafat Ali Al-Akhali is the Convenor of the Council on State Fragility and the Global Engagement Lead for the IGC’s Reducing State Fragilities initiative, primarily based at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. He was formerly Policy & Operations Manager for the LSE-Oxford Commission on State Fragility, Growth and Development.

Rafat was appointed in November 2014 as Minister of Youth and Sports in the Government of Yemen, a post he held until September 2015. Prior to his appointment, Rafat was leading the Policy Reforms team at the Executive Bureau for Acceleration of Aid Absorption and Support for Policy Reforms. In that position, Rafat led the planning and implementation of key reforms in Yemen including fuel subsidies, power sector, and civil service reforms. He also led business environment reforms and government efforts in private sector development.

Prior to joining the Yemeni government, Rafat has served as a Senior Consultant and Analyst for organizations such as PricewaterhouseCoopers and IBM in Canada. He has also worked in the field of development with a number of international development agencies in Yemen, and was a member of the Accessions Division at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva where he participated in the accession process of several countries including Yemen.

Rafat earned his second Master degree in Public Policy (MPP) at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, UK. His first Master degree was in Business Administration (MBA) from Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) Montréal, Canada.

Rafat is a non-resident fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council, and was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2015.