Register hereCarlos Madjri Sanvee
Carlos Madjri SANVEE (Togo) is Secretary General of the World Alliance of YMCAs. He took up the role in January 2019, having been elected during the 19th YMCA World Council in Chiang Mai, Thailand in July 2018. He is the first African Secretary General of World YMCA.
In his current role, he led the response to the Covid crisis from early 2020 by launching YMCA wide efforts for Movements to share and help each other, notably launching the YMCA Covid Solidarity Fund. Putting young people at the centre of initiating and leading change, he created the vision for the Youth Led Solutions Initiative, a series of Summits and projects launched in 2021 to empower young people with knowledge, networks and resources to lead change in their communities. He has been at the forefront of developing new partnerships with the public, private and ‘third’ (civil society) sectors, especially with the ‘Big 6’ youth empowerment organisations and the WHO and UN, in launching the Global Youth Mobilization in 2020-2022. Building on the three part Covid response strategy of ‘Resilience, Recovery and Reimagination’, he spearheaded a Movement-wide process of conversation and consultation which led to the adoption of YMCA Vision 2030 at the 20th YMCA World Council in Aarhus, Denmark in July 2022. The vision puts young people at the centre of the YMCA’s mission, a direction he had promoted across his different roles since 2010.
His priority in his second term of office – from 2022 – is to see Vision 2030 implemented across the Movement, addressing the 12 Strategic Goals of the four ‘Pillars of Impact’: Community Wellbeing, Meaningful Work, Sustainable Planet, and Just World. World YMCA’s first duty is to add value to its members. 2023 and 2024 saw the launch of two of the Vision 2030 Pillars (including a global survey on young people’s hopes and fears in the world of work), as well as the support functions for Strategic Alignment and Movement Strengthening, Learning, Innovation and Impact, and Resource Development and Partnerships. He also became Chair of the ‘Big 6’ as it launched a second phase of the Global Youth Mobilization with EU funding. In January 2025, his term was extended until December 2028.
Carlos Sanvee has been with the YMCA Movement for 50 years. He joined YMCA Togo as a teenage volunteer in 1973, and became a staff member in 1987 as a youth worker and community organiser. He ultimately became the deputy National General Secretary.
He first joined World YMCA in January 1999 as Executive for Finance & Administration, a position he held until 2007. During this time he was secretary of the-then Youth Committee within the Executive Committee, and strove to integrate young people at all levels of the Committee, and not in separate committees. He then worked as General Secretary of the Africa Alliance of YMCAs from 2007 until 2018, when he led the African YMCA Movements in articulating their collective identity with a shared vision around the ‘African Renaissance’. In this period he developed the Africa-wide YMCA ‘From Subject to Citizen’ programme. From 2011 to 2018, he was also acting as a part-time Special Advisor to the Secretary General of the World YMCAs.
He holds a first degree in Physics and Chemistry from Université du Bénin in Togo, and a “Diplôme des Hautes études de pratiques sociales (DHEPS)” from Université Lyon Lumière II, France.
