The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Carlos Lopes, has once again made it on the list of Africa’s 100 most influential people for 2015 by pan African Magazine, The New African.
Mr. Lopes joins a circle of prominent African leaders, Madame Dlamini Zuma, Chairperson of the African Union Commission and Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) who grace the list for their respective roles in advancing the African development agenda.
The December 2016 edition of the pan African magazine tags Mr. Lopes as “a supreme strategist and a thinker, in view of his intellectual and long-term tactical approach to problem solving.”
The citation notes that Lopes continues to play a key role in influencing policy; and that he is a staunch advocate of homegrown solutions “and is a proponent of new ways of thinking so that things are not simply business as usual.”
The magazine goes on to describe the Executive Secretary as “dogged and determined and a data fanatic who eschews anecdotal evidence for hard concrete facts.”
Behind the scenes, states the publication, Mr. Lopes is working closely with a number of governments to advise policy makers in an increasingly complex world.
When asked if he was invariably tied to a UN agenda, he replied: “I have two choices: I can take the UN’s agenda to Africa, or rather, I can take Africa’s agenda to the UN,” concludes the citation.