Dona
Jean-Claude Houssou

Minister Houssou has more than three decades of technical and political experience in the energy sector, mainly in nuclear, thermal and solar photovoltaic systems at Electricité de France (EDF), in the Government of Benin and in the surrounding African regions.

He graduated with an engineering degree from SUP GALILEE (France) and joined EDF in 1991, after 3 years teaching mathematics in high school. Fulfilling a range of roles in three different nuclear power plants, he respectively assumed the mantle of operations human capacity building manager, operations deputy manager and instrumentation and control manager. From 2005 to 2008, he oversaw the safety advisory team for nuclear power plants at the corporate level. From 2008 to 2012, he served as a thermal power plant manager and then as the thermal generation director in the French West Indies, before joining the international development department of EDF in April 2012 in Paris, where he was appointed as the manager of access to energy in developing countries.

In addition, he was EDF support in Congo Brazzaville and Cameroon, the Chairman of ERA SA, Senegalese Rural Electrification company, a subsidiary of EDF and a board member of several EDF subsidiaries in Botswana, Senegal and South Africa, until appointed in April 2016 as Minister of Energy, Water and Mines of the Republic of Benin.

From October 2017 to April 2023, he was appointed Minister of Energy.

He was also Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Volta Basin Authority covering Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mali and Togo and Chairman of the Committee of Ministers of West African Gas Pipeline Authority covering Benin, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo, Co-Chairman of High Council Interstate (Benin and Togo) of Electric Community of Benin (CEB), President of the ECOWAS energy ministers network and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Alliance for Biodigester in west and central Africa covering Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo).