Youssef Mahmoud

Youssef Mahmoud is a Tunisian diplomat, academic, and peacebuilding practitioner. He is Senior Adviser Emeritus at the International Peace Institute (IPI) and Visiting Professor at the African Leadership Centre (ALC), King's College London, where he serves as a leading practitioner and research fellow on the Centre’s Practice of Leadership Programme. Mahmoud is a former United Nations Under-Secretary-General who headed peace operations in Burundi and Chad/Central African Republic and served on the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Peace Operations.

Education Youssef Mahmoud earned a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from the University of Tunis, specializing in American and British Studies. Mahmoud later pursued graduate studies at Georgetown University in the United States, where he obtained a Master of Science and a PhD in Linguistics.

Career Mahmoud joined the United Nations in 1981 and served in various capacities, including: Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT) from June 2010. Executive Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Burundi (BINUB) from 2007 to 2009. Mahmoud also serves as Senior Adviser Emeritus at the International Peace Institute, where he provides strategic guidance on peacebuilding and multilateral diplomacy. “Peace as the Norm: Sustaining Peace in Africa” – IPI Global Observatory, July 2022.

Personal life He is married with two children.