Antoine Faye

It has always been my belief that capacity in term of the ability to define and solve problems, to make informed choices, to order priorities and to plan the future, as well as to implement and sustain programs and projects, should have been the one skill that any individual must have sought for to acquire.
More than a decade ago and at mid-career as a Budget Analyst at the US Embassy in Dakar Senegal, I made a rational assessment of the comparative opportunities prospects between my homeland and a foreign destination. Thus, I decided to momentarily relocate into the United States of America. While living there however, I intuitively challenged myself into improving my academic level. At term, I obtained a dual Bachelor of Sciences in Public Financial Management and in International Development. Then I used those credentials to register the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University in the City of New York where I pursued a Master in International Affairs concentrating in Economic and Political Development and specializing in Management.
Over those years, I followed a path that has prepared me to apprehend the extreme unpredictability and the contradictory context within which International Affairs and issues are played out one against another by various actors during international gatherings. Still a student, I have been given the opportunity to take part to the highly mediatized COP15 in Copenhagen Denmark. Ensuing, as I remained interestingly abreast of the UNFCCC activities, I have been invited at its headquarters in Bonn for a one day familiarization seminar.
I think I can say that I was inspired coming back to Senegal my country of origin. There, I was for the International Affairs/Climate Change Adviser to the Minister of Renewable Energies during his tenure from April 2010 to Mars 2012. My achievement includes providing policies briefs that helped the country embrace the financing mechanisms that has been agreed by, during every Conference of the Parties as the results of the Bali Plan of Actions or Road Map.As such, I was an influential member of the Senegalese delegation that participated at the COP17 that was held last year in Durban South Africa. It has been a long walk, decade after the 1979 World Climate Conference, to see the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted in May 1992. The objective of the Convention and any related legal instrument that ensued, is; to achieve the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system (Art. 2). It is my understanding, that for this objective to be achieved the international community will need to design and effectively implement measures guided by the principles of equity and the common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities of developed and developing countries. In fact, addressing climate change implies revisiting current developmental approaches. In Africa particularly, while mitigation will contribute to a low carbon development pathway, adaptation is all about supporting climate-resilient development. Thus, the complexity of the climate negotiations calls for a wide range of expertise to be available in the participating countries.
Unfortunately, it is that lack of negotiating capacity that is one of the constraints faced by most French speaking (10 out of 15) ECOWAS’ states negotiators. In fact, although the simultaneous translation often available, these negotiators always lose the substance of the talks and do not necessary find the time to read hard copies of summaries that are not even distributed in time.
I know I possess pre-exiting knowledge and skills related to the various topics of Climate Change. My ambition now is aimed at developing that knowledge and these skills in order to fit them with the process, pathway, and principles laid out in the Durban Platform, in a framework that could bring about, meaningful emissions reductions on an appropriate timetable at acceptable cost.

Joined 2012

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