Ayobamidele Ajayi is the Connecting Business initiative's Regional Network Coordination Officer for sub-Saharan Africa. His profile includes expanding CBi in Africa, integrating cash into the CBi toolbox and strengthening private sector participation in the Humanitarian Programme Cycle (HPC). Ayo brings more than 20 years of experience facilitating private sector engagement, humanitarian coordination (natural and complex/protracted emergencies), organizational development and participatory planning with diverse assignments in different contexts, including Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Geneva.
From 2021 to 2022, Ayo led strategic global support to 27 OCHA country offices across Central and South Asia, Africa and North America to integrate cash into the humanitarian coordination mechanism and the HPC process. From 2012 to 2021, Ayo held several senior positions in OCHA, including the Head of the Humanitarian Advisory Team, where he coordinated the joint Humanitarian Country Team and the private sector response to over 2.1 million displaced by floods and pioneered the humanitarian coordination to 1.8 million people displaced by insurgency in northeast Nigeria.
From 2004 to 2012, as the Head of Unit with Catholic Relief Service, Ayo transitioned the $40 million AIDSRelief fund to national organizations to provide HIV/AIDS care and treatment therapy. He supervised the Private Sector Cooperate Responsibility project, which led to the signing of the Global Memorandum of Understanding between the oil companies and host communities in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. Within this period, he built the capacity of the Emergency Preparedness and Response teams and supported the design and implementation of Disaster Risk Reduction activities at the community level. Ayo holds a master's degree in International Relations and Strategic Studies and a bachelor's degree in Philosophy from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria.