Kamal Amakrane

Kamal Amakrane currently leads the Global Centre for Climate Mobility, which advances regional climate mobility initiatives enabled by the UN, the World Bank, and other regional organizations in Africa, the Greater Caribbean region, and the Middle East. He also spearheads the Rising Nations Initiative, a UN member states-led initiative focused on protecting the statehood, sovereignty, and heritage of Pacific atoll island countries facing existential threat from rising sea level. 

Kamal serves as Adjunct Professor of International Relations at Columbia University, where he co-chairs the university’s network on climate mobility. 

Over the last two decades, Kamal has held various senior positions in the UN, serving as political director to several presidents of the UN General Assembly and in senior assignments at UN headquarters in New York, as well as in various political missions and peacekeeping operations, including in Iraq, Myanmar, Côte d’Ivoire, and Darfur. He led efforts resulting in the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, the Global Compact for Migration, as well as the establishment of the first UN Innovation and Technology Accelerator for Cities.

Kamal is a member of the Global Board of Trustees of The Commons Project Foundation and the board of directors of the Tällberg Foundation. He also served in the executive board of Sciences Po Paris in 2002 and 2003. Kamal was appointed Yale World Fellow in 2012 and Richard von Weisacker Fellow at the Bosch Academy in 2023. He is an architect and a graduate of Sciences Po Paris, Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and the Saint-Luc School of Architecture.

Last updated: 2023