Imad mesdoua biography

Imad Mesdoua is a political analyst.
Imad Mesdoua is an Algerian political analyst.
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Imad Mesdoua

Imad Mesdoua is a political analyst. He currently works as a Senior Manager at Africa Matters Limited (AML) where he specialises in North Africa and West Africa. He works closely with clients in the oil and gas, power and financial services sectors. Imad regularly travels to the regions he covers to meet with senior political, diplomatic and private sector stakeholders. He has a thorough understanding for strategic policy and security issues affecting business and investment in North and West Africa.

He regularly provides on-air analyses as a guest commentator for the BBC, Al Jazeera and France 24. Imad has also been interviewed on current affairs in the Financial Times, Newsweek, Reuters, Bloomberg, and the AFP.

Imad previously worked as a consultant in the MENA region, advising political officials, electoral candidates and international organisations, on policy, public relations strategy and political communication. He has appeared as an expert witness before several parliamentary hearings (UK House of Commons 2013 and UK House of Lords 2015) and regularly at

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The inner workings of Algeria’s opaque state structures are a mystery for many foreign observers. Since the country gained independence in 1962, Algeria’s inward-looking regime has jealously guarded its ability to conduct state affairs without outside interference. In 2012, as Western powers contemplated military action against jihadi groups in Northern Mali, European and American diplomatic delegations heavily lobbied Algerian government officials for support with no success.

Algeria’s deployment capability and its intimate knowledge of jihadi militancy, gained during its decade long civil war in the nineties, made it a prime candidate for the role of “˜regional policeman’. The country’s financial stability and its traditional influence over Sahelian neighbours were perceived as assets in this new front in the “˜War on Terror’.

Hillary Clinton, Laurent Fabius and a number of other senior Western envoys were dispatched to meet with President Bouteflika to convince him. But their requests were met with scepticism inside the r

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Perspectives on Algeria

Join us for a panel discussion on the issues facing Algeria today. The talk will both give context to Algeria’s past including its colonial history; reflect on what is happening today both socially, politically, economically and in light of the recent uprisings in neighbouring Tunisia and Libya; and the challenges Algerian society faces looking towards the future. This talk is at a particularly pertinent moment following the recent elections.

The panel will include:

Dr Hamza Hamouchene an Algerian activist , writer and a founding member of Algeria Solidarity Campaign (ASC), a London-based organisation campaigning for peaceful democratic change and the respect of human rights in Algeria. He previously worked for Platform where he was researching British energy interests in Algeria and he is currently a campaigner with the World Development Movement, a global justice NGO. His writings appeared in Jadaliyya, openDemocracy, Guardian and Huffington Post.

Dr James McDougall is a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, where he teaches modern European and