Dr. Innocent Onah is a Sustainability Expert with special interest in the intersection between public policy, governance of natural resources, climate change, and green growth. He currently the Chief Natural Resources Officer at the African Development Bank where he is playing a lead role in the Bank’s work on Natural Capital in African Development Finance (NC4-ADF), integrated natural resource management and climate change. He was previously AfDB’s Climate Change and Green Growth Consultant at the Nigeria Country Department where he was responsible for managing climate risks and green growth opportunities in a multi-sectoral portfolio of projects worth over USD 2 billion. He represented the Bank in the Nigeria Green Bond Advisory Group (GBAG) and the Nigeria Circular Economy Working Group (NCEWG), where he convened and mobilized resources to support the design of climate-compatible projects, including a proposed Nigeria Circular Economy Programme (NCEP). Prior to joining the African Development Bank, Dr. Onah served as Special Assistant to the Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology (2011-2015) and Special Assistant to the former President of the Senate of Nigeria (2015-2019).
He is a member of the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM), Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP), Green Policy Platform of GGKP, Africa Natural Capital Accounting Community of Practice, and International Association for Energy Economics (IAEE). He has recently published academic papers in high impact peer-reviewed journals like Elsevier (World Development, 2021) and Springer (Climatic Change, 2019).
Dr. Onah holds a PhD degree in Environmental Resource Management from Nasarawa State University; a Master’s degree in Agricultural Sciences and Resource Management from the University of Bonn-Germany; and a Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture (Economics) from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria.