The Brookings Institution, often stylized as Brookings, is an American think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global economy, and economic development.
Mohammad Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai is an Afghan former politician, academic, and economist who served as the president of Afghanistan from September 2014 until August 2021, when his government was overthrown by the Taliban.
Paula Jon Dobriansky is an American diplomat, public official, and foreign policy expert who served as Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs (2001–2009) and the President's Envoy to Northern Ireland (2007–2009). A specialist in Central/East European affairs and the former Soviet Union, trans-Atlantic relations, and political-military affairs, Dobriansky held key senior roles in the administrations of five U.S. presidents.
Anne Woods Patterson is an American diplomat and career Foreign Service Officer. She served as the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs from 2013 to 2017. She previously served as United States Ambassador to Egypt until 2013 and as United States Ambassador to Pakistan from July 2007 to October 2010.
Janine di Giovanni is an author, journalist, and war correspondent currently serving as the Executive Director of The Reckoning Project. She is a senior fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, a non-resident Fellow at The New America Foundation and the Geneva Center for Security Policy in International Security and a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She was named a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow, and in 2020, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded her the Blake-Dodd nonfiction prize for her lifetime body of work. She has contributed to The Times, Vanity Fair, Granta, The New York Times, and The Guardian.
Ajmal Shams is an Afghan politician and former civil engineer.
The Center for Global Development (CGD) is a nonprofit think tank based in Washington, D.C., and London that focuses on international development.
Harriet Lee Elam-Thomas is a United States diplomat and university professor who directs the Diplomacy Program under International and Global Studies at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando, Florida. From 2000 to 2002, Thomas served as the United States Ambassador to Senegal.
Obiageli "Oby" Ezekwesili is an economic policy expert, an advocate for transparency, accountability, good governance and human capital development, a humanitarian and an activist. She is a former vice president for the World Bank's Africa region, co-founder and founding director of Transparency International, co-founder of the #BringBackOurGirls movement and has served twice as Federal Minister in Nigeria. She is also the founder of #FixPolitics Initiative, a research-based citizen-led initiative, the School of Politics Policy and Governance (SPPG), and Human Capital Africa.
Kori N. Schake is the Director of Foreign and Defense Policy at the American Enterprise Institute. She has held several high positions in the U.S. Defense and State Departments and on the National Security Council. She was a foreign-policy adviser to the McCain-Palin 2008 presidential campaign. Schake is a contributing writer at The Atlantic. She serves on the board of advisors of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the Alexander Hamilton Society.
A career Foreign Service Officer, Paul E. Simons served as the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States to Chile from 2007 to 2010.
The Institute for State Effectiveness (ISE) is a non-governmental organization based in Washington, D.C. that seeks to address the challenge of accountability and governance through a system-building approach across governments, markets and people. ISE was founded by Ashraf Ghani, future President of Afghanistan.
Presidential elections were held in Afghanistan on 5 April 2014, with a second round held on 14 June. Incumbent President Hamid Karzai was not eligible to run due to term limits. The registration period for presidential nominations was open from 16 September 2013 until 6 October 2013. A total of 27 candidates were confirmed to be running for office. However, on 22 October Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission disqualified 16 of the candidates, leaving only 11 in the race. By April 2014 three candidates gave up the race and decided to support some of the eight remaining candidates. Opinion polls showed Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani as the front-runners and indeed the results of the first round of the election had Abdullah in the lead and Ghani behind him. The second set of results came after the run-off on 14 June, two months after the first round. Preliminary results were expected on 2 July and the final result on 22 July. However, widespread accusations of fraud delayed these results. As a result, John Kerry, then United States Secretary of State, mediated the negotiations between the two final candidates, Ghani and Abdullah. After a series of negotiations and talks between Ghani, Abdullah and Kerry, the two candidates agreed to sign an Agreement to form a National Unity Government based on 50–50 power sharing. As a result of that political agreement, a separate position was created for Abdullah as Chief Executive. The National Unity Government's term ran out after the next Afghan presidential election was held in September 2019.
Emma Sky, OBE is a British expert on conflict, reconciliation and stability, who has worked mainly in the Middle East. She served in Iraq as the political advisor to US General Ray Odierno and General David Petraeus during the surge. She is director of the International Leadership Center at Yale University, overseeing the Yale World Fellows Program and other initiatives. She is a Senior Fellow at Yale's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, where she lectures on Middle East politics and global affairs.
Rosemary Anne DiCarlo is an American diplomat who has served as United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs since May 2018. She previously served as acting United States Ambassador to the United Nations following the resignation of Susan Rice to become the National Security Advisor.
Rula F. Saadah Ghani is a former first lady of Afghanistan and wife of former president of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani.
Hamdullah Mohib is an Afghan politician and former diplomat.
Hamidullah Farooqi is an Afghan politician, economist and activist. He has written several research papers and served in higher positions within the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’s government. Farooqi currently serves as the Chancellor of Kabul University and Advisor Minister to President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani on Higher Education. He previously served as Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation from March 2009 to January 2010 in the cabinet of former President Hamid Karzai.
Adela Raz is an Afghan politician who served as the last ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the United States from July 2021 to February 2022. Raz was also the first woman to hold the office of Permanent Representative of Afghanistan to the United Nations.
