Professor Adebayo O. Olukoshi is a Distinguished Professor. He completed his first degree in International Studies at the Ahmadu Bello University and his doctorate in Politics at the University of Leeds. He comes to the School of Governance with over three decades of experience in research, training and capacity enhancement, programme development, and institution-building. Most of his research has centred on the interplay of politics and economics in the development experience. He has published extensively in this field of research. Among his most impactful work are the studies he published on the politics of the economic reform programmes promoted by the international financial institutions in Africa during the 1980s into the new millennium.

Professor Olukoshi has previously served as a Director of Research at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Research Programme Coordinator at the Nordic Africa Institute, and Senior Programme Staff at the inter- governmental South Centre. He has also previously served as the Executive Secretary of the Council for Social Science Research in Africa, Director of the United Nations African Institute for Economic Development and Planning, Director a.i. of the Africa Governance Institute, and Director for Africa and West Asia at International IDEA. He has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Unuversity of Johannesburg and Covenant University. Currently, he holds an Honorary Professorship at the University of Edinburgh, an Honorary Research Associateship at the Nordic Africa Institute, and an Honorary Senior Fellowship at the Centre for Democracy and Developmemt.

At the School of Governance is developing a stream of work on rethinking democracy, development, and governance on their own and in their inter-connections. This stream of work aims to contribute fresh thinking to the overall state of governance in Africa at a time when the process of democratisation has come under severe stress and the development experience has been stymied by growing poverty and rising inequality. Perspectives emanating from the work will be fed into global comparative conversations about the imperative of renewing democracy and development.