Hubert DE MILLY

A specialist in international development aid, Hubert de Milly works as a policy advisor at AFD's Strategy Department. He closely monitored the adoption of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations and their subsequent integration into AFD's strategy.

The SDGs have been fully integrated into AFD's 2018-2022 Strategic Orientation Plan: all of AFD's projects and investments must now take them into account.  Hubert de Milly is the guarantor of this process, as he championed these goals even before they were adopted, and now works to lead other development stakeholders in this direction.

Hubert de Milly is an agronomist and holds a PhD in economics. He began his career in the field, where for almost 20 years he developed and implemented projects in Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Mozambique, Angola and Mali, for the French Ministry of Cooperation. 

He then moved from operational into strategic management, working as a regional adviser for development and multilateral issues at the French Embassy in India (2001-2004), and then as deputy head of development strategies and multilateral Issues for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2004-2007). In 2007, he joined the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to focus on issues relating to the quality of international aid. He led the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness (GT-EFF or WP-EFF) and in this capacity, he organized two high-level forums on the subject, one in Accra (2008) and one in Busan (2011).

In 2013, by then a renowned development policy analyst, Hubert de Milly joined AFD as a policy adviser for AFD's Strategy Department. He monitors issues such as the redefinition of aid, loan concessionality, the evaluation of aid quality, and events likely to result in the redirection of aid (e.g. periods of austerity). Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, he has been closely monitoring developments relating to the SDGs and the timeline for their implementation, which present a considerable challenge in terms of international aid, since these goals aim for a level of thematic comprehensiveness that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) did not. 

Media Appearances in English

• Interview: "Too Much of the Money Invested Still Runs Counter to the Sustainable Development Goals" (September 2019)

Media Appearances in French

• "Universalité géographique des ODD : un agenda pour tous les pays", on Canal-U (September 2018)