Samuel Oti is a Senior Program Specialist with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). He is responsible for leading, developing and implementing IDRC’s food, environment and health programming for Sub Saharan Africa. His interests are in non-communicable disease (NCD) prevention and universal health coverage. He has in recent times shown interest in the intersection between climate change, health and food systems. In February 2019, he completed a training program on the health effects of climate change offered by Harvard University. Prior to joining IDRC, Dr. Oti was theme leader for the NCD research program at the top ranked global health think tank in Africa – The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC). At APHRC, Dr. Oti published pioneering research on the rising burden of NCD among the poorest of the poor – Africa’s slum population. This work propelled Dr. Oti into becoming a key policy influencer at national and regional platforms such as Kenya’s National NCD Poverty Commission and the East Africa NCD Alliance. Dr. Oti holds a PhD in Medicine (Global Health) from the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; an MSc in Medicine (Epidemiology and Biostatistics) from University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa; and a Bachelor’s degree in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Jos, Nigeria. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health (UK) and an alumnus of the East Africa Social Science Translation fellowship program offered by the Center for Effective Global Action, University of California at Berkeley. He is a co-founder and founding secretary of the Network of Impact Evaluation Researchers in Africa. His long-term ambition is to inspire and convene Africa’s largest ever independent private sector fund for development research. A fund that will be free of conflict of interest and that will support at least 100 years of research and innovation on priority development issues affecting the continent and its people.

To engage with his podcast visit:

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/medxtekafrica

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