Tade Aina

Dr. Tade Akin Aina is currently the Chief Impact and Research Officer at the Mastercard Foundation, which is one of the largest private foundations in the world, seeking to build a world in which all people can learn and prosper. The Mastercard Foundation is enabling pathways to work and economic opportunity for indigenous youth in Canada and millions of young people in Africa. Prior to joining the Foundation, Tade served for six years as the Executive Director of the Partnership for African Social and Governance Research (PASGR ), which is an independent, nonpartisan, pan-African not-for-profit organization located in Kenya. Before that, he was Director of Higher Education and Libraries in Africa for the Carnegie Corporation of New York, USA, from 2008 to 2014. He also worked at the Ford Foundation Nairobi Office for Eastern Africa from 1998-2008, where he served as Regional Representative, Eastern Africa from 2003 to 2008. Tade has been Deputy Executive Secretary (Publications) for the Dakar, Senegal -based Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa(CODESRIA) and was also an academic at the University of Lagos, where he rose to the rank of Full Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology.

Over the course of his career, Dr. Aina has consulted for numerous multilateral agencies, including UNDP, UNICEF, UN-HABITAT, the United Nations University and the World Bank and has also published on issues ranging from urbanization and urban poverty to governance, development theory and practice, higher education, nutrition and child development and environment and development.