Hailemelekot Asfaw is a Country Director for the East Africa Regional Office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE). He is a specialist in the Ethiopian Business Membership Organizations (BMOs) in the programs of capacity building for membership development, business advocacy, public-private dialogues, and empowering grass root associations, etc.
He is an Ethiopian native with more than 19 years of work experience in public and private institutions as well as local and international NGOs. Out of his total of work experience, 15 years’ experience has been working with the private sector and civil society organizations, building their capacity for service delivery and advocacy to enhance the business environment throughout the country. He worked on different projects as a consultant that was supported by different international organizations that include World Bank (WB), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Frederick Ebert Stiftung (FES), International Trade Center (ITC), Initiative Africa (IA), European Union – Civil Society Fund (EU-CSF), and the German Development Cooperation (GTZ), etc.
He has an MA in the field of Social Work from Addis Ababa University (AAU). He did his undergraduate degree in two fields, i.e. in Law (2009), and Sociology & Social Administration (1999) from AAU. He also took medium and short courses on the themes of association leadership and management (USA, IOM), Renewable Energy (Germany), Research and Survey Methodology (Oxford Research International), project monitoring and evaluation, and advocacy, etc.