Olanrewaju Olaniyan, the pioneer Vice Chancellor, Emmanuel Alayande University of Education, Oyo is a Professor in the Department of Economics, University of Ibadan. He has over 27 years of research, consulting and tertiary teaching experience in Economics of education, poverty and welfare analysis. He also has experience in social policy work in developing countries through which he had been able to interact and work with senior-level technocrats and officials.
During 2003-4, he led a team organised by the National Planning Commission of Nigeria to prepare the Social Protection Policy for Nigeria. He was engaged as a World Bank consultant in 2006 -2007 to assist the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) in Nigeria to develop her Participatory Poverty Monitoring and Evaluation framework. Between 2003 and 2005, he was the Nigerian country Team leader for a 5-country research study on Private school serving low-income families supported by the Templeton Foundation and coordinated by EG West Centre, University of Newcastle, United Kingdom. He was also a member of the national technical team that prepared the National Health Accounts for Nigeria in 2009. He was the team leader for Nigeria on the 5-country study on Shaping Social Protection in Nigeria: The National Transfer Accounts Approach, Research sponsored by the IDRC, Canada, October and which lasted for three years between 2008 and 2011.
Since 2018, the Health Policy Training and Research Programme (HPTRP), University of Ibadan, which he leads had been an institutional partner of the United Nations Population Fund examining Demographic Dividend Issues and how generational transfers affects different lifecycles of the Nigerian population. He has consulted widely for, and/or received research grants from many organizations/agencies among which are: the World Bank, World Health Organization, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNFPA, FAO, International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada; African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), Partnership for Transforming Health Systems (PATHS), Population Council, National Planning Commission, Nigeria, Federal Ministry of Finance, Nigeria and National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) in Nigeria.
He was a Senior Associate Member, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom as well as visiting Research scholar to Cornell University, Ithaca, USA, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom and University of Hawaii, USA. Olanrewaju was also a member of the Academic Advisory Committee of the SDG Academy (20120 – 2021), an initiative of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network as well as a Co-chair of the Academic Steering Committee of the Global Master’s in Development Practice (MDP) Association based in Columbia University, New York, USA (2020 – 2021).
Professor Olaniyan is a major keynote presenter at several conferences and seminars in more than 50 countries around the world including those in Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, North and South America. He Is widely travelled and has visited 31 States in Nigeria including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). He was Director of University of Ibadan Centre for Sustainable Development for five years between 2016 and 2021. In 2021, he was named as one of the “100 Most Influential Civil Society Leaders” in Nigeria by the Nigeria Network of NGOs (NNNGO) representing 3033 organizations, in recognition of his efforts into the growth of the non-profit sector, as well as inspiring the next generation of civil society leaders who are passionate about leading change and challenging the status quo.
Olanrewaju was educated at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria where he obtained Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) (First Class Honours) Educational Management and Economics; and Ph.D., Economics. He is a Registered Teacher with the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN). He was the Director, University of Ibadan Centre for Sustainable Development, 2016 – 2021, and the current Dean, Faculty of Economics and Management Sciences, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.
