Economist in Nigeria

Meet Nonso Obikili, the Economist in the Resident Coordinator’s Office in Nigeria. Nonso is helping strengthen coordination within the United Nations country team and partners to accelerate efforts in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), under the leadership of the Resident Coordinator.

With a new set of common country analyses (CCA), Nonso has led the joint analysis of Nigeria’s progress and challenges focusing on themes such as productivity and competitiveness, financing landscape, and gender equality, with the aim of identifying key structural constraints and opportunities for the UN’s support. This has involved the use of new and innovative data that has allowed for analysis beyond broad national aggregates and towards more decentralized cleavages. For instance, the use of gridded and high-frequency data on climate anomalies allowed the identification of specific administrative areas/ regions most impacted. Such innovations have helped improve the focus of the new UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework. 

Nonso has also led more targeted joint analysis on food security and women’s leadership and participation in politics to help build a collective understanding within relevant UN agencies, and to promote collaborative programming. Policy advice and analysis on food and nutrition security, in particular, has contributed to the UN’s support to Nigeria’s contributions to the Food Systems Summit.