Ms. Abimbola Olufore Wycliffe

Ms. Abimbola Olufore Wycliffe’s career spans the private sector, public sector, and international civil service to date. In her current role as Head of Investment and Technology Promotion in Nigeria, covering a few African countries, she has the responsibilities of coordinating, integrating, and managing the day-to-day operations emanating from a 6-year work plan focused on boosting investment, innovation, and technology flow in and out of Africa. Through our country desks and advisory programmes, she supports technology and impact hubs, large firms, industrial clusters, and small businesses. In addition to collaborating with UNIDO offices in the region, to implement their respective Country Programmes, she oversees the development and implementation of impact programmes with key stakeholders like governments, other development institutions and the private sector networks. Within the first year in this role, she secured an extension of the office programme to 2027 with government commitment for counterpart funding. She also secured the UNIDO executive board approval for the programme expansion beyond ECOWAS to partnerships with all AFCFTA member states, widening the potential funding pool and impact footprint. Prior to joining the United Nations, she worked as a Special Aide to the Honorable Minister of Trade and Investment for Nigeria to secure development funding for technology innovation from development banks, ensure credit access to MSMEs at single digit rate, provide shared/common facilities for MSMEs and coordinated Development Finance Institutions (DFI) partnerships with the Nigerian Government.