Dr David Olufemi Awolala has a professional background in climate change economics, agricultural economics, and environmental governance. He is a research fellow and Director, Climate Policy Center, African Group of Negotiators Experts Support (AGNES) responsible for coordinating activities interfacing between consolidation of evidence in negotiations, policy, decision making and providing support for climate action across different sectors. He has seventeen years of professional experience in teaching, research and consulting.

He is specialized on microeconomic policy issues in agriculture, environment, and sustainable development with research focus on climate risk and vulnerability, impact assessment, adaptation science and finance, policy analysis, environmental management, production economics, poverty and gender analysis, econometrics and statistical data modelling.

Dr Awolala has successfully implemented a number of competitive multi-year research projects funded by the DAAD, IDRC, UK-GCRF Research and Innovations, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, and the German GMBF. He is a Research Fellow of DAAD ClimapAfrica; African Science Weather for Information and Forecasting Techniques (SWIFT); Adaptation Finance and Fellowship Programme (AFFP); the African Climate Change Fellowship Programme (AfriCLP); and doctoral fellowship of the West African Science Service Centre of Climate Change and Land Use (WASCAL). Dr Awolala has good record of publications in peer-reviewed academic journals and a member of many professional organizations. He is a climate negotiator at the UNFCCC on agriculture and an IPCC-AR7 scoping author.