Wolpe to be named special envoy to Great Lakes Region

Howard Wolpe, a former Michigan congressman who directs the Africa program and the project on leadership and building state capacity at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, will be named President Barack Obama's special envoy to the Great Lakes Region, sources confirmed.

Wolpe previously served as an envoy to the region from 1996 to 2001 for President Bill Clinton. More recently, he advised the Obama campaign on African issues. He declined to comment on the appointment.

As a congressman who sat on and chaired the Africa subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee for a decade, Wolpe's first chief of staff was Johnnie Carson, now the assistant secretary of state for African affairs.