Who's who
Global South Unit
Professor Chris Alden
Director of the Global South Unit
Director of LSE IDEAS
Professor in International Relations, LSE
Email: j.c.alden@lse.ac.uk
Web: LSE ProfileProfessor in International Relations, LSE; Director of LSE-IDEAS Africa Programme; and a former Programme Head, Global Powers and Africa, South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA).
He is author/co-author of numerous books and reports, including The South and World Politics (Palgrave 2010), China and Latin America (CLSA 2009), China in Africa (Zed 2007), and co-editor of China Returns to Africa (Hurst 2008), Japan and South Africa (Ashgate 2003) as well as articles in internationally recognised journals. He has contributed to research, conferences and publications on the South African foreign policy since 1991, the changing role of China and Africa since 1992 and China and Latin America since 2007.
He has conducted consultancies for the World Bank, the African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, CLSA, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Standard Bank (SA) and Rand Merchant Bank (SA) amongst others.
Professor Alvaro Mendez
Director of the Global South Unit
Senior Research Fellow, LSE
Email: a.mendez@lse.ac.uk
Web: LSE ProfileProfessor Alvaro Mendez is the Director of the Global South Unit at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a Senior Associate Fellow at LSE IDEAS. He is an Associate Fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, as well as an Adjunct Professor at Fudan University in Shanghai.
He teaches International Relations at LSE, Sciences-Po Paris, and Peking University. Mendez is the author, co-author, or editor of numerous books, including Colombian Agency and the Making of US Foreign Policy: Intervention by Invitation (2017); The China-Latin America Axis: Emerging Markets and their Role in an Increasingly Globalised World (2018); New Development Assistance: Emerging Economies and the New Landscape of Development Assistance (2020); and The Political Economy of China – Latin America Relations: The AIIB Membership (2020). He has published articles in journals such as Geopolitics, Global Policy, Sustainability, Journal of Business Research, The China Journal, Finance Research Letters, and Foreign Policy Analysis.
Dr Sergio Chichava
Associate Fellow
Email: sergio.chichava@iese.ac.mz
Email: chichava@gmail.com
Dr Sérgio Chichava is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Social and Economic Studies (IESE) in Mozambique, where he leads a research programme on rising powers and development. His current work focuses on the international dimensions of the crisis in Cabo Delgado. Chichava has lectured in political sociology and Mozambican politics at Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo and has held fellowships at Oxford University and the LSE. He holds a PhD in political science from Bordeaux University, focusing on African politics.
Professor Francisco Javier Forcadell
Senior Associate Fellow
Email: franciscojavier.forcadell@urjc.es
Francisco Javier Forcadell is a Professor of Management in the Department of Business Administration at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (URJC) since 1999. He is also Senior Researcher at the Sustainable Banking Initiative at LSE IDEAS. Forcadell has occupied several positions as external consultant at the Spain’s Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitivity. Professor Forcadell is the author of numerous articles published in leading academic journals such as Long Range Planning, Research Policy, Journal of Business Ethics and Journal of World Business.
Dr Folashadé Soulé-Kohndou
Associate Fellow
Email:
folashade.soule-kohndou@bsg.ox.ac.ukDr Folashadé Soulé is a Senior Research Associate at the Global Economic Governance programme (Blavatnik School of Government). Her research areas focuses on Africa-China relations, the study of agency in Africa’s international relations and the politics of South-South cooperation. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the London School of Economics, and a former Oxford-Princeton Global Leaders Fellow. Her research has been published in several peer-review journals among which African Affairs, International Affairs, Global Governance and Foro Internacional.
Professor Enrique García
Enrique Garcia is a Visiting Professor in Practice at LSE IDEAS. He is the Chairman of the Advisory Board at the LSE Global South Unit. Enrique was President and CEO of CAF – Development Bank of Latin America for 26 years, and held managerial positions at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). In Bolivia, he was the Minister of Planning and Coordination and member of the Board of the Central Bank. He is Chairman of the Council of International Relations for Latin America (RIAL) and the Trust for the Americas as well as member of several Boards internationally. He is the author of publications on development issues and multilateralism in international journals and books.
Dr Irene Mia
Dr Irene Mia is the Editor of the Armed Conflict Survey and a Senior Fellow for Latin America and Conflict, Security and Development at The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), leading the IISS research programme on Latin America security, governance and geo-economics, as well as directing the Conflict, Security and Development research programme. Previously, she held Director-level posts at The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) as well as the Centre for Global Competitiveness and Performance at the World Economic Forum.
Andres Rugeles
Andres Rugeles is the Vice-President of the Colombian Council on Foreign Relations (CORI).
He has had extensive experience in the field of foreign policy, as well as in multilateral banking and Latin American regional integration.
He was visiting fellow and member of the Latin America Centre (LAC) at Oxford University, and international affiliate scholar at Cornell University. Previously, he served as Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Colombia to the United Nations in New York; Secretary of Transparency of Colombia; Chief of Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Colombia; Chief of Cabinet and General Advisor of CAF – Development Bank of Latin America; Secretary General of CAF; Representative of CAF in Argentina; Chief of Cabinet of the Secretary General of the Andean Community; among others.
His recent books are the following: Latin America: the vision of its leaders (Planeta, 2024), Latin America in the world (Planeta, 2024), and Global Colombia: a foreign policy for security and development (Planeta, 2026).
He is an alumnus of LSE and was a member of the Editorial Committee of Millennium: Journal of International Studies.
Gaspard Estrada
Gaspard Estrada is a Political Scientist. He was executive director of the Political Observatory of Latin America and the Caribbean (OPALC). In this capacity, he raised the impact and the influence of Sciences Po in the field of Latin American Studies. Besides his academic publications, he has written opinion pieces for The New York Times, Le Monde, El Paísand Project Syndicate.
Thanks to his work, Sciences Po received several Latin American presidents, including Lula da Silva, Alberto Fernández, Juan Manuel Santos. Gaspard created the Sciences Po’s Latin American Art Collection (Sebastião Salgado, Pablo Reinoso). From 2020 to 2023, he was co-chair of the High Level Working Group on Inequalities in the Americas of the UNDP, jointly with former ministers Jorge Castañeda and Carlos Ominami.