Karamba Diaby

Early life and education

Diaby grew up in Marsassoum, Senegal. The youngest of four children, he was raised by his sister after losing both of his parents by the time he was 7. A graduate of the Cheikh Anta Diop University, he left Senegal to study chemistry in East Germany in 1985, and stayed past the reunification of Germany, after which he became more involved in political and social activism.

Member of Parliament

On September 22, 2013, Diaby was elected to the Bundestag as a Social Democratic Party of Germany candidate from Halle (Saale), Saxony-Anhalt; Diaby became one of the first two Bundestag members of African ancestry, alongside Charles M. Huber (born to a Senegalese father and German mother), who was elected at the same time from the Christian Democratic Union.

Diaby currently serves as deputy chairman of the Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid and as full member of the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment. On the latter, he is his parliamentary group’s rapporteur on matter related to the Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the recognition of your foreign qualifications. Within his parliamentary group, he is a member of the working group on municipal policy.

In addition, Diaby is the deputy chairman of the Parliamentary Friendship Group for Relations with the Francophone States of West and Central Africa (Equatorial Guinea, Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea, Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Chad, Central African Republic).

Other activities