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Elisabeth Caesens headshot

Elisabeth Caesens

  • Board Member

  • Natural Resource Governance Institute - Europe

Elisabeth Caesens is the founder and executive director of Resource Matters, a non-profit organization that promotes good governance in the mining and energy sector in Central Africa. She has conducted extensive analysis and field research on mining deals, tax flows and corruption scandals in the Congolese mining sector for the past 12 years. She is also pioneering work that aims to encourage better management of solar, wind and hydro resources to further people-centered electrification in Congo.

Prior to founding Resource Matters, she was an Open Society Fellow examining hydropower deals and related revenue flows in Congo. Before that, she lived for five years in Lubumbashi, the capital of the former Congolese province of Katanga, where she set up and managed the Carter Center’s Mining Governance Program. Elisabeth is also a part-time lecturer at Sciences Po (2015-present), where she teaches a class on mining, money and the law.

Elisabeth holds a master of law and a master in international relations from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, a human rights masters from the Académie Universitaire de Louvain and an LL.M. from Columbia Law School.