Dr. Essis earned a law degree from the national university of Cote d’Ivoire (1986), a master of arts degree in public management from Cote d’Ivoire’s national school of administration (Ecole Nationale d’Administration, Abidjan, 1988), graduate certificates from the international institute of public administration (Institut International d’Administration Publique, Paris, France), and the World Bank institute; and a Ph.D. in public policy from George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia (1997). He received a Fulbright scholarship for his doctoral studies at George Mason University (1992-1996) and another Fulbright scholarship for his postdoctoral research work at New York University (2002-2003).
Dr. Essis served as Cote d’Ivoire’s representative in various international negotiations, including the 1995 review and extension conference of the parties to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT) held at the United Nations headquarters in New York, NY; the 1999 conference of the international civil defense organization, in Beijing, China; and the 1999 Belgium-Cote d’Ivoire bilateral cooperation commission in Brussels, Belgium.
Between 1998 and 2002, Dr. Essis served successively as assistant secretary for decentralization policy and as deputy secretary for decentralization, inter-governmental relations, and local government capacity building in Cote d’Ivoire’s ministry of state, interior, and decentralization. As such, he supervised the design, implementation and evaluation of workplace conflict resolution programs, including the provision of negotiation, facilitation, mediation and arbitration services to 197 municipal governments and over 18,000 national and municipal employees. He also spearheaded a comprehensive public sector reform program that resulted in the creation of 58 new self-governing regional entities (“departments” and “districts”), the election of their governing councils (“conseils generaux”) and the devolution/transfer of significant fiscal and administrative powers from the central/national government to the new regional governments.
During the same period of time, Dr. Essis served as a professor of public policy; management science; political science; conflict analysis and resolution; as well as quantitative and qualitative research/evaluation methods; at various institutions of higher learning in Cote d’Ivoire.
Dr. Essis has researched and published extensively in the fields of international relations and diplomacy; nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament negotiation; cross-cultural negotiation, facilitation, and mediation; conflict resolution systems design; strategic management for public, private and non-profit organizations; organizational and social capacity building; as well as the relationships between governance, public policy, development, sustainability, and conflict/peace challenges in the modern African state.
Before joining NSU in 2004, Dr. Essis was a postdoctoral research fellow at the center on international cooperation, New York University, and a senior fellow at the school of public policy, George Mason University.
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