Olufemi Balogun

MERL Director, Mastercard Foundation African Growth Fund

Femi Balogun is a researcher and impact measurement expert with over a decade of experience designing, implementing, and evaluating interventions that advance youth transitions across Africa. His work has supported over a million young people in the areas of job creation, social innovation, entrepreneurship, education, and impact investing.

‘Femi brings useful experience working with policy actors and government agencies across the continent. He is a key partner to several research to policy initiatives on the continent such as Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA) and PASGR’s Utafiti Sera – research policy community – whose work advances evidence for development policy making around youth transitions, social protection, urban governance and water governance.
In 2021, ‘Femi was recognized by the United Nations Global 100 under 40 list of the Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD), in the Activism and Humanitarian category. More recently, he was appointed Co-Chair of the Lagos State Government Technical Working Group on Youth Engagement.
He holds master’s degrees from King's College London and the University of Lagos, a BSc in International Relations from Covenant University, and is an alumnus of the African Leadership 
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