Speaker biographies
Mauro De Lorenzo is a resident fellow in foreign and defense policy studies at AEI, where he studies private sector-based approaches to development in postconflict and post-Socialist countries; Chinese investment and political influence outside the Pacific region, particularly in Africa; and democratic accountability in aid-receiving countries. In 2005, Mr. De Lorenzo worked as a consultant to Afghan construction companies in Kabul, and prior to that he was a research associate at both the American University in Cairo and the Makerere Institute of Social Research in Kampala, Uganda, focusing on refugee policy and the wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. In 2002, he researched and was associate producer of The Price of Aid, a BBC documentary about U.S. food aid to Africa.
Tony Gambino is an independent consultant on international development and foreign policy issues. He previously served for two and half years as the mission director at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, receiving USAID’s Superior Honor Award. He first went to the Congo (then called Zaïre) in 1979, where he served for three years as a Peace Corps volunteer. From 1997 to 2004, he worked for USAID on the Congo and other countries in Central Africa. He returned to the Congo in 2006 to monitor the presidential and the National Assembly elections. Mr. Gambino has also worked on international development issues for the U.S. House of Representatives, the State Department, and nonprofit organizations.
Colin Thomas-Jensen is a policy adviser at the Center for American Progress, where he guides the ENOUGH Project. ENOUGH aims to end genocide and crimes against humanity. He also oversees ENOUGH’s field research in Sudan, Chad, the Congo, Uganda, and the Horn of Africa. Mr. Thomas-Jensen previously worked at the International Crisis Group, where he had a range of responsibilities including direct advocacy with senior policymakers and research trips to Africa. He joined the International Crisis Group from the U.S. Agency for International Development, where he was an information officer on the humanitarian response team for Darfur. He also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia and Mozambique, and has travelled extensively in East, Central, and Southern Africa. He has written for Foreign Affairs on U.S. policy in the Horn of Africa, publishes regular commentaries and op-eds in U.S. and African newspapers, and speaks frequently with international news outlets.
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