Akwe Amosu is a Senior Policy Analyst for Africa at the Washington Office of the Open Society Institute. She seeks to facilitate links between OSI’s Africa-based foundations, initiatives and grantees, and the international policy community in Washington, D.C., as well as sharing OSI perspectives on African issues and collaborating with other organizations in areas of joint concern. Ms. Amosu particularly aims to assist the U.S. Congress and the wider policy community to understand Africa’s challenges and ensure a hearing for African civil society. Ms. Amosu has broad experience in African affairs and has written and broadcast extensively on the most pressing issues affecting the continent. For over twenty years she worked as a journalist and radio producer in leading African and Africa-targeted media. She joined allAfrica.com as its founder executive editor in 2000 and the site was twice nominated (2002 and 2003) in the Webby Awards’ Best News Site category. At the BBC World Service during the nineties, during her leadership of the station’s flagship breakfast show “Network Africa” and other weekly feature programs for Africa, her team won several medals at the New York festivals and she conceived a landmark radio series on the history of Africa. She has also worked at the Financial Times in London and West Africa magazine. Most recently, in 2003-5, she was based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as head of communication at the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa, and part of the strategic and policy-focused team supporting the UNECA executive secretary.