Leslie Campbell has 25 years of experience in international development, parliamentary governance and political affairs. He joined NDI in 1994 and has directed the Institute’s programs in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region since 1996. As NDI’s senior associate and regional director, Mr. Campbell has overseen a vast expansion of NDI’s programs in the Middle East with the establishment of offices and programs that furnish assistance with political, civic and governance reform throughout the Arab world.
Mr. Campbell is a frequent guest and commentator on Middle East issues for major news outlets, and has also written a number of articles and papers on the subject of democracy in the Middle East, including a chapter in The Islamists Are Coming (USIP Press, April 2012) and “Party Building in the Middle East,” which appeared in the winter 2010 edition of International Journal. Mr. Campbell has been a guest lecturer at American University, Princeton University, Georgetown University, Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the University of Toronto. He has served on task forces and study groups on Middle East democracy at the Brookings Institution, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the United States Institute of Peace and is a member of the Agenda Working Group for the Halifax International Security Forum.
Mr. Campbell also comments and writes on the topic of Canadian political party reform and co-authored, with Thomas Axworthy, The Democracy Canada Institute, A Blueprint (Centre for the Study of Democracy, Queen’s University, 2005). Before joining NDI, Mr. Campbell was chief of staff to the leader of the New Democratic Party in the Canadian House of Commons.
Mr. Campbell holds a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University and a B.A. from the University of Manitoba.
https://www.ndi.org/people/leslie-campbell