Kalkidan Assefa Kebede

Sponsoring Rotary District: 5160
Worked in: United States, Ethiopia, Malawi, Ghana, South Sudan, Zambia, Chad, Madagascar
Degrees from: Haramaya University- Ethiopia and Mekelle University-Ethiopia
Future plans: "I plan to work on topics & programs related to sustainable energy transition, environment & development in Africa. I also have an interest to do more research & participate in the designing of policy reforms on youth employment, equity & public development linking it with the UN Sustainable Development Goals."

Kalkidan Assefa holds a Masters in Agricultural Economics and a BSc. in Natural Resource Economics and Management (NREM) both from Ethiopia. He has more than ten years of professional experience in socioeconomic research and development areas. Recently, he has been consulting with the International Labour Organization's (ILO’s) project on Social Protection for Migrant Workers in Africa.
Prior to that, Kalkidan has been working for the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) serving as a Research Officer and technical lead for a continental project called African Social Development Index (ASDI) focusing on the social and economic impact of human exclusion. So far, he has successfully managed to launch the findings for over 34 countries across Africa. Moreover, he has worked as a core team and has been actively involved in the joint production of various knowledge products and flagship reports of the organization such as the Economic Report on Africa (ERA-2017) and the African Social Development Report (ASDR-2018).

Before joining UNECA, he worked as a Research Technician and Technical Lead for the World Food Programme (UNWFP) for the Cost of Hunger in Africa (COHA), A Pan-African Initiative led by the African Union and New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Based on the working experience progressively gained from UNECA and UNWFP, he has covered various socioeconomic development aspects particularly with regard to pro-poor service delivery including social protection and basic food and nutrition security, health and education, poverty and human exclusion, informal employment and inequality, youth employment and migration in Africa. His outstanding evidence based policy contribution through the findings of COHA was used in the development of the African Regional Nutrition Security Strategy (ARNS) paper and the development of National Nutrition Programs for 12 African countries. Both the ASDI and the COHA findings are now becoming blueprint documents to guide countries across the continent to refer and enhance social and economic development trajectories.

During his stay at Duke University, he aspires to study and research the alternative tools and policy options to alleviate poverty and hunger particularly focusing on socioeconomic transformation, public investment and social service delivery towards achieving sustained peace and security in the developing world and ultimately inclusive socioeconomic growth and sustained development.