Zainab Usman is a Senior Research Scholar and Managing Director of International Programs within the Energy Opportunity Lab at the Center on Global Energy Policy. Previously, she served as the founding director of the Africa Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and held senior roles at The World Bank, advising governments across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Zainab has worked on policy reforms and social sustainability in Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, the Republic of Congo, Serbia, Tanzania, and Uzbekistan.
Zainab is co-author of the book, The Future of Work in Africa: Harnessing the Potential of Digital Technologies for All. She also contributed to World Bank’s flagship report on Rethinking Power Sector Reforms in Developing Countries. Zainab has also published book chapters and research papers on energy sector reforms more broadly. Her written and broadcast commentary has appeared in Al-Jazeera English, African Arguments, CNN and The Washington Post, among others. Zainab received her DPhil (PhD) from the University of Oxford, successfully defending her doctoral thesis titled, The Political Economy of Economic Diversification in Nigeria. She currently sits on the board of Premium Times in Nigeria.
Advancing inclusive and equitable energy transitions is one of this century’s most vital global challenges, and one in…
The new director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Africa Program on why resource curse thinking is…
