Speakers' Biographies Welcome and Opening Remarks Monique Pariat, Director-General, DG ECHO Monique Pariat is appointed Director-General in DG Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protectionas from 1st September 2015. Prior to this post, she was Deputy Director-General in DG "Agriculture and Rural Development". She was responsible for EU international and trade relations in the area of agriculture and rural development, and for further developing EU agricultural quality policies. She was also Director for the Mediterranean and the Black Sea in DG "Fisheries and Maritime Policy", Director for General Affairs in DG "Justice, Freedom and Security" and Director for Resources in DG "Agriculture and Rural development". She has been an official at the European Commission since 1987. She graduated from the Institute of Political Studies of Strasbourg and holds a degree from the College of Europe in Bruges. Keynote Speech Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Education Gordon Brown served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2007 to 2010, Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1997 to 2007 and as a Member of Parliament in his home county of Fife, Scotland, from 1983 to 2015. He is the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education and is a passionate advocate for the rights of children. He believes every girl and boy deserves the opportunity of a future through schooling. Mr Brown has also been appointed Chair of the new Global Commission on Financing Global Education and serves as New York University’s inaugural Distinguished Global Leader in Residence. 1 Panel: The EU's Support to Education in Fragility and Crisis-Affected Contexts Jean-Louis Ville, Acting Director, DG DEVCO Jean-Louis Ville is presently acting Director for Human Development and Migration at the European Commission in the Directorate General for Development and Cooperation (DEVCO). Previously, he occupied the position of Head of Unit, in charge of Human Rights, Gender, and Democratic Governance). He is in charge of the policy and thematic issues related to these areas and implementing a variety of instruments directed to CSOs and International partners. Working with the European Commission since 1987, he has occupied several positions in various Directorate General (Agriculture, Budget and Development and Cooperation) as Head of Unit for Budget, Finance and Contracts, Regional Programs for the Neighbourhood East and South). He also served for a period as Deputy Head of the private Office of the Rt Hon C. PATTEN during his mandate as European Commissioner for External Relations. He has studied political sciences in Strasbourg, European Affairs in Bruges and European law in Paris. Simon Mordue, Director, DG NEAR Since September 2014, Simon Mordue has been Director for "Strategy and Turkey" in DG NEAR, covering issues such as the overall strategy for enlargement policy and the European Neighborhood Policy, policy planning, interinstitutional relations and communication, thematic support, monitoring and evaluation, financial instruments and negotiations with Turkey on both the accession and migration fronts. In the Barroso II Commission, Simon was Head of Cabinet for Štefan Füle, European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy. In the Barroso I Commission, Simon was deputy Head of Cabinet to Vice President Verheugen covering a broad range of areas in the VP's team including responsibility for driving forward the better regulation agenda and the relations of the VP with the EP and Council. He had also been part of Commissioner Verheugen's team for the last part of the Prodi Commission where he oversaw preparations for the new financial perspectives and also dealt with relations with the EP. At other times in his career in the Commission, he has been Head of Unit for the maritime sector in DG Transport and Energy (TREN); Head of the Financial Instruments Unit in Dg Enlargement and served also as Head of the Operational Sections of the EC's delegations in Romania and Turkey. Jens Nymand-Christensen, Deputy Director-General, DG EAC Jens is Danish and holds a Master degree in Business Economics and International Economics. He has been employed in the European Institutions since 1979 and has among other things been a Member of the cabinet of Vice-President Henning Christophersen, Head of Unit of an office dealing with International Food, Veterinary and Phytosanitary questions and Advisor at the Danish Permanent EU Representation dealing with the Convention and the preparations of the Inter-governmental Conference drafting a Constitutional Treaty for the European Union. In 2003-2014, Jens worked as a Director in the Secretariat-General: 2003-2006 with responsibility for Directorate B, Relations with the civil society; 2006-2011 for Directorate E, Better regulation and Institutional Issues; 2011-2013 for Directorate G, Relations with the European Parliament, the Committees and General Institutional Issues and 2013-2014 for Directorate E, Policy Co-ordination II. From 16 September 2014 he was appointed Deputy Director-General in the Directorate General for Education and Culture. 2 Panel: Education in Emergencies in Practice: The Lake Chad Crisis – Education as a Lifeline? Jean-Louis de Brouwer, Director for Europe, Eastern Neighbourhood and Middle East, DG ECHO Jean-Louis De Brouwer, Belgian, is Director for Europe, Eastern Neighbourhood and Middle East at the European Commission's Directorate-General "European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations" (ECHO). He was Director of Operations of DG ECHO until July 2016. He joined DG ECHO in November 2012, having previously been Director in charge of the coordination of employment policies in the Commission's department for Employment and Social Affairs. Prior to that, he spent 18 years in the Justice and Home Affairs department, specialising in migration and asylum questions, latterly as Director in charge of border and visa issues. Before joining the European Commission, Mr De Brouwer worked in the Belgian civil service (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Ministry of Home Affairs). Mr De Brouwer has Masters Degrees in Law and Sociology from the Catholic University in Louvain, where he also did his degree in Political Sciences. He is a lecturer in International Relations and EU Affairs at the same university. Toby Lanzer, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel, OCHA Toby Lanzer, a national of the United Kingdom, is the United Nations Assistant Secretary- General and Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sahel. In this capacity he supports humanitarian action in nine countries across the region (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal). Based in Dakar, he took up his position on 21 July 2015. Before joining the United Nations Development Programme in 1992, he has held various positions in the UN system, including: Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General in South Sudan; Chief of Staff of the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT); Humanitarian Coordinator for Darfur, Sudan; UNDP Resident Representative in the Central African Republic (CAR); Head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Russian Federation; Chief of the emergency appeals team, based in OCHA, Geneva. He has also worked on human rights issues for non-governmental organisations in Brazil and Chile. The holder of a post-graduate certificate in forced migration, a master’s degree in international affairs with a specialization in economic and political development, and a bachelor’s degree in history, Toby Lanzer was educated at the University of Oxford, as well as Columbia University and the University of New Hampshire. Manuel Fontaine, Regional Director for West and Central Africa, UNICEF Manuel Fontaine was appointed UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa Region (WCARO) in August 2013. Based in Dakar, Senegal, he is responsible for overseeing UNICEF’s programmes in 24 countries in the region. Mr Fontaine has had a long experience in the organization, having joined as an emergency officer in Geneva in 1992. He also served as UNICEF Representative in Algeria, Deputy Representative in Afghanistan, Albania, Bosnia, and Somalia, and at various senior positions in UNICEF’s New York Headquarters and its Geneva office. Mr Fontaine joined the West and Central Africa Region in August 2011 as Deputy Regional Director before acting then being appointed as Regional Director. Mr Fontaine has a background in child protection, in particular on the subject of children and armed conflict, and is a specialist in countries in crisis. He led several UNICEF’s humanitarian responses to the Sahel nutrition crisis of 2012 and to the conflict in Mali in 2013. The top UN official also continues to coordinate major conflict-related emergencies across the region, including the unfolding crisis in Central African Republic. Prior to joining UNICEF, Mr Fontaine worked for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Fontaine is a national of France. He holds a DEA (post-graduate diploma) in International Public Law and International Organizations from the University of Paris I (Pantheon-Sorbonne). 3 Sarah Ndikumana, Country Director, Nigeria, International Rescue Committee Sarah has been the Country Director with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Nigeria since August 2014. Prior to Nigeria, Sarah spent nearly two years in the Central African Republic, also with the IRC as Country Director. Prior to these most recent positions, Sarah spent six years in the Great Lakes region of Africa overseeing humanitarian programming for refugees and internally displaced persons in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. Sarah has been Africa- based for over 10 years, focusing on the management of emergency response-focused multi- sector programs for populations impacted by conflict. She also spent two years in Washington DC with Georgetown University’s Institute for Reproductive Health where we was the Senior Program Officer for Africa, traveling frequently to Central and West Africa while in that role, and also worked with the IRC in their NY HQ for several years while in graduate school.