Jean-Michel Dufils

Jean-Michel Dufils is a Senior Research Governance Specialist at RTI's Center for Governance. He has more than 30 years of experience in international development and has led complex projects in a variety of culturally, politically, and socially challenging settings. He has experience conducting high-level negotiation and policy dialogue with governments, international donors, civil society, and private-sector organizations as well as extensive hands-on experience managing complex, long-term development programming.

Mr. Dufils' work includes developing and documenting RTI’s experience in using governance approaches to enable or catalyze sectoral outcomes in health, education, agriculture, energy, natural resource management, and other areas. He also adapts and produces tools and innovative methodologies to effectively manage client and host country governance-related issues.

Previously, he served as Chief of Party for USAID/Senegal’s Governance for Local Development (GoLD) project aimed at strengthening the ability of Senegal’s local governments to respond to citizen requests, improve collection and management of local resources, and foster community participation in the delivery of public services.

Mr. Dufils came to RTI in 2015 from FHI 360, where he served as Chief of Party for another Senegal-based project. He has long-term experience working in Algeria, France, Gabon, Jordan, Madagascar, Senegal, and the United States, and has worked on short-term technical assignments in Burkina Faso, Brazil, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Haiti, Kenya, Mali, Mauritius, Mexico, Niger, Peru, Rwanda, South Africa, Eswatini, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. He is fluent in French and English.