Project
Team Biography
Dr. Aklilu Fikresilassie
Africa Advisor, WRI Africa
Aklilu Fikresilassie (PhD) is the Director of Thriving Resilient Cities at WRI Africa and Representative of WRI in Ethiopia.
Dr. Aklilu has over 19 years of professional leadership and technical experiences in urban development and management, environmental policies, and managing governmental and non-governmental program. Prior to joining WRI, Aklilu spent 7 years as programme manager at UN-Habitat, representing the agency in Ethiopia. He worked as a planning specialist and team coordinator for UNDP in South Sudan. Aklilu also served as bureau head for finance and economic cooperation with a responsibility to manage, monitor, and evaluate government and NGOs programmes. Prior to these roles, he was a successful city manager.
In addition to his managerial and technical roles, Aklilu is a researcher on thematic areas such as urbanization, environment, water resources, and common pool resources.
Aklilu is a qualified urban and development planning, monitoring, and evaluation specialist with a PHD in Environment Policy and Urbanization from University College, Dublin. He also holds a Master of Arts degree in Urban Management and Development (specialization: Urban and Regional development strategies) from Erasmus University, the Netherlands.
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