Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy to Speak Today on Foreign Policy in Transition

Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy will speak today on “Egyptian Foreign Policy in Transition" as part of the Tahrir Dialogue series organized by the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and the AUC Forum. The lecture will be held in Arabic, with simultaneous translation provided, at 6 pm in Oriental Hall, AUC Tahrir Square.

Ambassador Fahmy, who is on public service leave from AUC, served as founding dean of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy (GAPP). He was Egypt’s ambassador to the United States from 1999 to 2008, after which he returned to Egypt, heading GAPP and serving as chair of the Monterey Center of Nonproliferation Study’s Middle East Nuclear Nonproliferation Project. He is also a member of the advisory board of the International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament.

An AUC alumnus, Fahmy holds a bachelor’s in physics and mathematics and a master’s in management, both from AUC. He was Egypt’s ambassador to Japan and political adviser to the foreign minister, before which he served at the Egyptian missions to the United Nations in New York and Geneva. Fahmy has written extensively on Middle East politics, development and peacemaking, as well as regional security and disarmament. Since appointed dean of GAPP, he has introduced several initiatives including new academic degree programs, an executive education program, a public-policy lecture series and a global affairs quarterly, in addition to establishing collaborative partnerships with universities in the region and worldwide.

Fahmy has been a career diplomat who has played an active role in the numerous efforts to bring peace to the Middle East, as well as in international and regional disarmament affairs. He headed the Egyptian delegation to the Middle East Peace Process Steering Committee in 1993 and the Egyptian delegation to the Multilateral Working Group on Regional Security and Arms Control emanating from the Madrid Peace Conference of December 1991. In addition, he was elected vice chair of the first committee on Disarmament and International Security Affairs of the 44th session of the UN General Assembly in 1986. From 1999 until 2003, he was a member of the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board of Disarmament Matters, where he served as its chair in 2001.