DR. OLUFUNSO SOMORIN
Regional Principal Officer- African Development Bank
Dr. Olufunso Somorin is a Regional Principal Officer at the African Development Bank. He leads the Bank’s work on climate change and green growth in the 13 countries of the Bank’s East African region. This includes supporting countries’ access to climate finance for implementing their climate actions, and mainstreaming climate change in all Bank policies and programs. In addition, he leads policy dialogues with national/regional governments on developing policy frameworks for managing local and regional economic and social issues, climate change, renewable energy, resilience and inclusive growth.
In the last eight years, he has been directly involved in the design, appraisal and supervision of more than 150 development projects worth about USD 14.4 billion. Prior to joining the Bank in 2011, Somorin was an Associate Professional Officer with the Center for International Forestry Research, supporting climate-informed policies of six Central African countries. He has published about 20 peer-reviewed articles on climate policy, natural resources management and environmental governance in many leading journals.
Somorin holds a PhD in International Environmental Policy from Wageningen University, the Netherlands. As an Erasmus Mundus scholar, he holds a double Master degrees from Finland and Netherlands. He is an alumnus of executive education from Bradford, Cambridge and Oxford Universities in the UK. He gives guest-lectures at the University of Guelph (Canada), African Leadership University (Rwanda) and Strathmore University (Kenya). Somorin is a recipient of the 2022 Africa Program of the Eisenhower Fellowships for his work on climate change in East Africa.