Michael started his career in international development in 2000 working on the USAID-funded Legislative Strengthening Programme (LSP) for Nigeria. He is an experienced professional and researcher, bringing a solid combination of international development, banking, public sector, and academic expertise and engaging successfully with a variety of stakeholders across the sectors.
Recently, Michael worked on a DFID-funded project called Facility for Oil Sector Transparency (FOSTER). FOSTER is a project aimed at improving governance of the Nigerian oil and gas sector and ensuring that revenues from the sector benefit the poor. As a Research and Policy Coordinator, Michael was responsible for coordinating FOSTER’s research and policy work, and also managed a work stream dedicated to providing support to the local implementation of relevant global initiatives particularly the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) and the Nigerian Natural Resource Charter (NNRC). He focused his role on broadening the inclusion of wider stakeholders in the implementation processes of these initiatives.
Michael currently works on a project jointly funded by DFID and the World Bank – ‘Growth and Employment in States’ (GEMS). Michael is the Intervention Manager (Northern States) for one of the components – GEMS2. GEMS2 is a five year (2010 – 2015) project which applies a market development (M4P) approach to create employment and income opportunities in the construction and real estate sector. Michael is responsible for the expansion of GEMS2 to the Federal Capital Territory and selected northern states. He also coordinates a component of the project that is dedicated to strengthening systems of advocacy and representation for stakeholders in the sector. Using his multistakeholder partnering skills, he influenced the facilitation of two key multi-stakeholder platforms – the Nigerian Engineering Leadership Forum (NELF) and the Federation of the Urban Poor (FEDUP) Social Housing Forum.
Michael has a PhD in International Development specialising in the use of multi-stakeholder partnerships for natural resource governance. In his doctoral thesis, he examined the implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in Nigeria.