Dr Omoayena Rosemary Odunbaku spent most of her life in the city of Lagos- an intense urban environment in a developing country and has always had an inherent interest and engagement with development issues. These influenced her enthusiasm and contribution across the African continent.
She works with the United Nations Human Settlements Programmes (UN-Habitat), and is currently the Senior Programme Officer, Human Settlements for the Anglophone West African region. Prior to assuming this role, within UN-Habitat, Dr Odunbaku held a dual position of Acting Head, Governance Unit and Programme Officer Africa Urban Agenda programme (AUA). She has a good understanding of the normative and operational mandates of the United Nations and how they are formulated, negotiated, and implemented. She worked closely with the Africa Union Commission (AUC), United Nations Commission for Africa (UNECA), Africa Development Bank (AfDB), Unitec Cities and Local Government for Africa (UCCLE-A) and Regional Economic Commissions for Africa in implementing the Africa Urban Agenda.
The AUA programme under her leadership backstopped Africa’s negotiation to Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Development (Habitat III); ensuring the endorsement of the Common African Position to Habitat III (CAPHIII) by the African Heads of State during the AU Summit in Kigali, Rwanda in July 2016. The AUA also advocated for the formulation and implementation of decentralisation and relevant policies by national governments to contextualise development programmes that proffer finance and investment solutions for citizens especially the poor.
Prior to taking up the UN-Habitat appointment, Dr Odunbaku was a lecturer in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Lagos, Nigeria. She also held several roles which include: Senior Human Settlements Consultant with Geo Trans Nigerian Limited, Henrich Boll Stitfung Nigeria, Venue staff with British Council Lagos, Lecturer at the Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Graphic assistant with Dachi architect and Inter-State architects and Merchandiser with Gemini Pharmaceutical. In discharging her duties, she worked on several human settlements profiling and slum upgrading projects in Nigeria, published in international learned journals and National journals, presented at several national and international conferences, lectured several undergraduate and post graduate courses and supervised undergraduate theses. I also supervised high level international exams, advocated for cleaner environments and marketed malaria medicines in the poor neighbourhoods of Lagos metropolis.
Over the past one and half decade, her working experience in national and international organizations, skills and experience in various aspects of human settlements, research, customer service, capacity building, training, advocacy, and communication have been tailored towards advocating for better human settlements, mentoring the younger generation especially the girl child and empowering the women and youth.
She recently authored a book to mentor young African females titled OMOH on her 40th birthday. OMOH is an objective account of her memoirs; a revealing story of how against all odds, she lived through the pain of her parents’ separation and assumed parental roles as minor, defied all the odds to become a dedicated mother to my three children whilst focusing on breaking the glass ceiling.
