Dr Olumide Abimbola is a political economist and the founder and director of APRI – the Africa Policy Research Institute. His areas of focus include EU-Africa relations, climate change, trade policy, regional integration, and natural resources management. He has either conducted research or worked in Tunisia, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Togo, and Nigeria. Before APRI, Abimbola worked at the CONNEX Support Unit, a GIZ-hosted G7 initiative funded by the German government and the European Commission. Prior to that, he worked on trade and regional integration at the African Development Bank. He currently sits on the International Board of the Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion (IMTFI) at the University of California, Irvine, and is a member of the Policy Working Group at the Institute of Humanities in Africa (HUMA) of the University of Cape Town, South Africa.