Prof. Anthony Okon Nyong

Director, Climate Change & Green Growth I AfDB

Anthony Nyong is the Director of Climate Change and Green Growth at the African Development Bank. He is currently on secondment to the Global Center on Adaptation a s the Regional Director for Africa. He has about 30 years of experience in environmental and natural resources management, environmental and social safeguards, renewable energy and green growth that span academia, private sector and development finance. Positions he has held at the African Development Bank include Coordinator of the New Deal on Energy for Africa; Head of the Renewable Energy Flagship, Head of Gender, Climate Change and Sustainable Development; and Head of Compliance and Safeguards. Before joining the Bank, he was a Senior Climate Change Specialist at the International Development Research Centre of Canada and prior to that, a Professor of Climate Change at the University of Jos, Nigeria.

Prof. Nyong has served on several Global Advisory and Scientific Boards including the Sustainable Stock Exchange Green Finance Advisory Group, the World Economic Advisory Panel on Circular Economy, the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Agricultural Resilience in Nigeria; WHO Thematic Reference Group on Environment, Agriculture and Infectious Disease; Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel of the Global Environment Facility; the International Human Dimensions Program, Global Environmental Change and Food Systems. He has served on the Boards of the Applied Center for Climate and Earth Systems Science, South Africa and the International Centre for Climate Change and Development at the Independent University, Bangladesh. Professor Nyong is a member of the Planning Committee of the Climate and Health Initiative of the National Academy of Medicine (USA). Mr Nyong serves on the Advisory Board of the World Economic Forum on Circular Economy, as well as on the Platform for Accelerating Circular Economy (PACE) Leadership Group

He was a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report and a member of the IPCC Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impact and Climate Analysis.

Professor Nyong holds a Ph.D. in Geography from McMaster University, Canada, a D.Sc. (hc) from the University of Calabar in Nigeria. He obtained an M.Sc. degree in Land Surveying from Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria and a B.Sc. degree in Geography and Regional Planning from the University of Calabar. He holds a Post-graduate Diploma from the University of Oxford and is a Senior Executive Fellow of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Prof Nyong is a Chartered Geographer of the Institute of British Geographers, a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He is named among the top 20 of the 100 most Influential People in Climate Policy 2019 by Apolitical.