Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi is a political economist with over 25 years of experience in economic, social and human capital development in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. She has extensive experience working with national governments, civil society, private sector and research institutions to advance development outcomes.
She currently serves as the executive vice president of the African Centre for Economic Transformation (ACET), where she is responsible for strategic leadership of the organization, and ACET’s gender and economic transformation portfolio.
Prior to joining ACET, Ms. Owusu-Gyamfi was director of investments at The Power of Nutrition, where she oversaw the foundation’s portfolio of investments in Africa and Asia that supported national governments to ensure women of reproductive age and children under 5 had access to quality nutrition services. From 2011 to 2016, Ms. Owusu-Gyamfi was the director for program policy and quality at Save the Children UK, where she established the organization’s first program quality department and the development of its first Technical Quality Framework. She also worked with the UK Department for International Development (now FCDO) for 15 years as a private sector development specialist. In her last role, she was responsible for setting DFID’s policy direction on private sector development.
Ms. Owusu-Gyamfi has led multisectoral teams in both government and non-governmental organizations to develop programs in the social and private sectors in over 16 countries. She has provided technical advice on microeconomic policies to governments in East, West and Southern Africa as well as the Eastern Caribbean. In addition, she facilitated the first national private sector development strategies in Ghana and Tanzania.
She has also extensive experience in organizational governance and has been a member of several nonprofit boards, including current role as a Trustee of Sightsavers and a board member of The Coalition for Global Prosperity. She is also a Desmond Tutu Fellow.
Ms. Owusu-Gyamfi is frequently invited to speak by the media, policy institutions, multilaterals, bilaterals and global foundations on issues such as economic development in Africa, gender equality, the future of the international finance development architecture, human capital development and COVID-19.
She holds a master’s of philosophy (M.Phil.) from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. Her publications include Binding Constraints to Growth in Nigeria (Oxford University Press, 2008) and Growth and Competitiveness (World Bank, 2007). She speaks English, Twi and limited French.
