Younes Abouyoub holds a Ph.D. in political sociology and M.A. in Geopolitics and Law. He is a research scholar at the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University (New York) and a research fellow at the Foundation for Migration, Population, and Environment (Switzerland). He has also worked as a consultant for the United Nations Department of Political Affairs (New York), and the United Nations Environment Program in Nairobi and was a member of the Panel of Experts on Sudan. His research interests cover issues of sustainable development, migration, political ecology, governance and electoral systems, with a special focus on the African continent. He has published numerous scholarly articles and op-ed articles. He has been a guest on several occasions to comment on issues related to his expertise in Africa in major media networks. He is a contributing author, inter alia, to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Modern History, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam, The Routledge International Handbook of World-Systems Analysis, the Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration (Wiley-Blackwell), and the edited book: Global Politics In The Dawn Of The 21st Century, Akis Kalaitzidis, ed. Athens Institute for Education and Research, Athens, Greece, 2009.