The National Chairman of the Industrial Division of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Engr Dr David Abu Ozigi, has confirmed that the first public lecture to be hosted by the institution in 2025 holds on Tuesday, January 21, by 2pm.
The event, which has as its theme “Mitigating the Skills Gap in Nigeria’s Industrialization”, will be held virtually, with the Senior Special Adviser on Industrialization to the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Prof Oyebanji Oyelaran–Oyeyinka, as guest speaker.
Engr Ozigi further stated that the theme of the January 2025 lecture was carefully chosen in recognition of the importance of skills development in Industrialization.
Professor Oyebanji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka is currently the Senior Special Adviser on Industrialization to the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) where he is coordinating the establishment of Agro-Industrial Processing Zones and Industrial Policy in several African countries. He is the first Nigerian professor in the field of Development Economics and Industrial Policy.
Professorial Fellow and former Professor of Development Economics at the United Nations University – Institute for New technologies (UNU-INTECH) for six years (2001-2006). UNUINTECH is a globally acclaimed Centre for research and training. The Centre benefited from Professor Oyelaran-Oyeyinka’s research and training during its earlier years. He earned global acclaim for his pioneering work in the field of Industrialization, Technological Change and Innovation Policy. He continues to be affiliated with the Centre (now United Nations University MERIT) as Visiting Professor.
Prof. Oyeyinka is a global thought leader and an astute administrator who served at a very high level within the United Nations (UN) system for 20 years, his last positions being Director, Regional Office for Africa, overseeing 24 countries; Chief Scientific Advisor, UN-HABITAT and Director Monitoring & Research Division.
He provided intellectual leadership for UNHABITAT flagship reports: “State of the World Cities Report” and the “Global Report on Human Settlements”, and guided work on the introduction of new ways to look at development and prosperity issues in Africa in several UN organizations, including at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Geneva, where he coordinated the ten-year review of performance of Least Developed Countries (LDCs)., The “City Prosperity Index”, a monitoring metric for city performance, that he introduced under his leadership, is now used in over 400 cities globally.