Policy Portfolio for Unlocking Bioenergy Development Potentials in West Africa

SSEE Visiting Fellow, Dr Gbadebo Odularu, gave a talk here at the School in June 2012 on Bioenergy in West Africa.

Seminar Summary: The seminar will review the bio-energy policy in West Africa and discuss the potential of using this resource for improved livelihoods, in the face of deplorable food security situation and increasing poverty within the sub-region. The paper recommends the regional bio-energy policy strategies and concludes by proposing a ‘bio-energy based development’ in order to strike a reasonable balance between food security, regional trade and sustainable development.

Gbadebo Odularu Seminar Slides

Speaker Biography: Dr Gbadebo Odularu started his career as a graduate/research assistant at the Trade Policy Research and Training Programme (TPRTP), Department of Economics, Faculty of the Social Sciences, University of Ibadan. He was also a field supervisor for the USAID/WARDA/NISER collaborative rice production, processing and consumption study. From 2003 to 2008, he was a lecturer at the Department of Economics and Development Studies, Covenant University, Nigeria. He holds a Ph.D in Economics (with focus on Trade) from Covenant University and a M.Sc in Agricultural Economics from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He was a visiting scholar at the following organizations: (i) Economic Research and Statistics Division (ERSD), WTO, Switzerland (2008); (ii) Centre for Regional Economic Studies (CRES), Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP), South Korea (2009); Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), Department of Economics, University of Oxford (2010); and (iv) United Nations Institute for Economic Development and Planing (UNIDEP) – (2011). He is also a member of the National Resources, Agricultural Development and Food Security International Research Network (NAF-IRN) and the African Economic Research Consortium Network (AERC). He has published about 35 papers in international journals. His responsibilities at FARA include contributing to the Ministerial Policy Brief Series, the FARA e-newsletter, the monthly FARA Regional Policies and Markets Info Intelligence (RPMII) Series, and FARA Policy Seminar Series. Dr Odularu works closely with regional and national partners to promote information sharing on policy instruments for dissemination across the African continent. As Coordinator of the Young Professionals’ Platform for Agricultural Research for Development at FARA, he facilitates exchange of information and knowledge among young African professionals across disciplines, nations and sub-regions.