Ambassador Hesham Youssef

Ambassador Hesham Youssef joined the European Institute of Peace in 2024. Previously, he was a career diplomat with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt and a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace (2019-24), focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other Middle Eastern conflicts. From 2014-19, he served as assistant secretary-general for humanitarian, cultural, and social affairs at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Before that, he was a senior official in the Arab League (2001-14), including roles as official spokesman, chief of staff to Secretary-General Amr Moussa, and senior advisor to Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby.

Youssef has extensive experience in conflict resolution in the Middle East, particularly the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iraqi reconciliation, and the situation in Sudan. He has written on Arab world reform and focused on humanitarian issues in the Islamic world, including Somalia, the Palestinian Territories, Chad, Niger, and Myanmar. Joining the Egyptian Foreign Ministry in 1985, he was posted to the Egyptian Embassy in Canada (1988-92) and the Egyptian Mission in Geneva (1995-99). He served in the Cabinet of the Egyptian minister for foreign affairs from 1992-95 and 1999-2001. Youssef holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Cairo University and master’s degrees in liberal arts from St. John’s College and economics from the American University in Cairo. He has taught at Cairo University, the American University in Cairo, and Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.