Emanuela Del Re has been appointed EU Special Representative for the 
Sahel in 2021. From 2018 to 2021, she served as Italy’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. She was also a Member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. 
Prominent scholar, sociologist and expert in international politics and foreign affairs, she is a specialist in geopolitics, migration and refugees, conflicts, religious issues, minorities. Del Re is a professor of Political Sociology and she taught for years at the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the “La Sapienza” University of Rome, where she was also “Jean Monnet” Professor with a teaching funded by the European Commission on European citizenship and governance.  

Since 1990 she has been working on field in conflict qnd transition areas. 
In 2017, as the National Coordinator of the Sociology of Religion department of the Italian Sociology Association (AIS) with which she launched the “Mondoreligioni” festival. Del Re has also conducted intervention projects since 2012 with the European Commission and other institutions for the reconstruction of civil society in conflict zones (i.e. Iraq, Jordan). She has been an International Electoral Observer for the United Nations, The Organization  for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the European Union and others. 
Author of several books, essays and papers.