David Sodade

Founder / President
Phone: +32 9 398 8874
Email: dsodade@devgrad.org
David Sodade is a Belgian citizen with Nigeria origin, a Development Economist and Snr Consultant in international cooperation and strategic partnership with a passion for the integration of Africa Base of Pyramid (BoP) market into the international development agenda. David work as an Independent Consultant in and around Brussels providing technical assistance and support for African entrepreneurs, government and organizations in tender preparation and grant application from International donor organization in the thematic area of Green Energy, Food Security and Inclusive Business. He is also a Senior Research Associate, Green Economy & Political Economy Analysis with 2es. Spanning more than a decade career experience which started in the year 2002 as a Research Assistant with Development (Agric) Finance department of Central Bank of Nigeria, Lagos in supervising Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF), David continues to support the African private sectors from the international community. He has extensive experience in supporting BoP markets in Ghana, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, South Africa, Zambia, and Cameroun, by facilitating strategic partnership and resource mobilization within the ACP- EU partnership agenda.

Prior to working as an Independent Consultant, he worked as a Consultant (Energy Enterprise Development) with Partners for Euro-African Green Energy (PANGEA), Brussels. In his project with PANGEA, David draws on an extensive background in Business Banking, Agriculture as well as Energy Economics. He led the preparation and application under the European Commission EDF ACP-EU Energy Facility II, for PANGEA partners and African Countries within our Network. With PANGEA serving as a major stakeholder under the United Nations SE4ALL initiatives, David collaborated with several African partners to ease access to capital under the SE4ALL and as a lobbyist within the European parliament advocating for sustainable bioenergy production in Africa, he is a regular attendant at EU Parliaments events with contribution to several bioenergy research publications. He contributed to the European Commission funded GLOBIOM project in collaboration with Ecofys and International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and as a Lead researcher for Water Energy Food nexus case studies for Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). He also developed several sustainable bioenergy models for the BoP including Cassava Based Integrated Food-Energy System (CABIFES) utilizing waste as clean cooking ethanol in collaboration with Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.

Before joining PANGEA, he worked as an Economic Researcher at the Biorenewable and Environmental Change Division, Aberystwyth University, Wales UK under the EuropeAid funded Biorefinery BEACON project developing economic models for businesses in the conversion of energy crops into products including pharmaceuticals, chemicals, fuels, and cosmetics. Before joining the Beacon team, he worked at business banking arms of Royal Bank of Scotland briefly and Lloyds Banking Group both in Edinburgh, Scotland during which he equally served as the Director of Xenon Energy Scotland, a privately owned waste to energy consulting firm he founded in Edinburgh between January 2010 and May 2013. In addition to his expertise in the creation of strategic partnerships integrating African BoP into the strategic goal of ACP-EU partnership, David has conducted research in Political Economy Analysis in the area of Ecosystem governance and green economy and specifically the livelihood impact of climate finance instruments on the BoP in developing countries of Africa

David Sodade earned an Advanced Masters (M.Sc) in Development Monitoring and Evaluation (Distinction), and Postgraduate Energy and Climate (Distinction) both from the University of Antwerp, Belgium as well as Masters in Energy Economics from the University of Dundee, Scotland. He equally holds a Research MSc in Agricultural Economics from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria and B. Agric in Agricultural Economics from the Federal University of Agriculture, Nigeria. David is fluent in English, Dutch and French (Basic).