Hamza Fassi-Fihri is an expert in governance and democracy, senior governance advisor at ECES since 2020, former member of the Brussels Parliament in Belgium, with twenty years of experience in the fields of politics and institutions, democracy and governance. After an initial career in journalism, Hamza became actively involved in politics for fifteen years, holding several leadership positions within his party, including that of national vice-president.
As a Member of Parliament, Hamza specialised in economic affairs, labour, employment, vocational training, and cultural policies, as well as democracy, governance and electoral affairs, working on electoral reforms and assuming responsibilities in various aspects of electoral processes. As chair of the Belgian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of La Francophonie for five years, Hamza also participated in election-related debates with electoral management bodies, mainly from African countries. He has also taken part in election observation missions with the International Organisation of La Francophonie, Sant'Egidio and the National Democratic Institute (Togo, Madagascar, Tunisia, Nigeria).
Alongside his parliamentary career, Hamza has been involved in local politics, serving for twelve years on the Brussels City Council, including six years as Deputy Mayor. In this role, he oversaw the organisation of several election cycles, supervising electoral operations at the local level.
After fifteen years in active politics, Hamza now devotes his professional life to the development of democracy and governance, particularly in Africa and the Middle East. After gaining initial experience in Tunisia with the NDI, where he supported political parties and the Tunisian parliament as programme director, he worked from 2020 as project coordinator for ECES on the EUSDGN project in Nigeria and then in Kenya on the implementation of the EU-funded Pro-Peace Kenya project. He also played a coordinating role in the Italian-funded Pro-Electoral Integrity project in support of the African Union Commission. Since 2023, Hamza has been in the Comoros, where he is leading the implementation of the European Union-funded project ‘Strengthening the Protection and Participation of Women, Youth and Civil Society in the Union of the Comoros - Shawiri Project’.
Alongside his field assignments, Hamza regularly contributes to other ECES projects as a parliamentary expert (such as in support of the AFD-funded « Governance, Peace and Stability project » in the Indian Ocean or as part of the PARD project in Guinea and PAPPE in Chad) or as a senior governance advisor in support of formulation and resource mobilisation missions.
Hamza is 49 years old, married and the father of two children. He holds an Executive Master's degree in Public Administration from the London School of Economics and Political Affairs (LSE-United Kingdom) and a Master's degree in International Relations (ULB-CERIS, Université libre de Bruxelles, Centre des Relations Internationales et Stratégiques, Belgium), Economics (ULB) and Journalism (Université catholique de Louvain-La-Neuve, UCL, Belgium).
