In Chicago, as an exchange student from France, Christian Arandel discovered his love for cities. There, he supported local community development efforts and interned with the Chicago Urban League to support housing foreclosure policy reform. This marked the beginning of his interest in local governance. After studying urban planning and international development at the University of Michigan, Christian moved to Cairo, Egypt, where, for the next eight years, he managed a regional United Nations program to strengthen urban management and governance in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen.

Upon his return to the United States, he joined RTI International as a local governance specialist working on programs and new business. In 2005, he took on the role of Chief of Party for the Morocco Local Governance Program. He was also a technical advisor and/or manager for several governance programs, including the Iraq Local Governance Project, the Guinea Faisons Ensemble project, the Senegal Governance for Local Development, and the Morocco Local Governance Program 2. In 2018, Christian joined Counterpart International where he played a leading role in building the organization’s portfolio of local governance, peacebuilding, and security sector governance projects in the Sahel. He is also the lead author of Counterpart’s Inclusive Social Accountability framework.

Christian joined DAI in June 2023 as a Senior Lead Specialist for Local Governance to support project implementation and new business development.

• M.U.P., community and international development, University of Michigan
• Diploma in Advanced European Studies, Public Administration, College of Europe, Belgium
• B.A., political science, international relations, Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Strasbourg, France