Bola Akanji specialized in agricultural economics at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria and has been working as a policy researcher for the last twenty years with Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research, Ibadan, Nigeria. Now Research Professor and Head, Rural Development Division, she has worked extensively on analysis of agricultural policies in Nigeria, as well as gender analysis of national, regional, and subregional policies and strategies. Her major research works include agricultural marketing, land use, and labor-use patterns in tradable and non-tradable crop sectors. She has done analytical writings on gender and poverty, gender and globalization, and agricultural commercialization, and developed gender and policy frameworks for Nigeria and Africa, including gender mainstreaming tools, gender and budgeting tools, gender-aware monitoring, evaluation and benchmarking, and, more recently, gender statistics and indicators. She has been member of IWG-GEM since 2003, an alumnus of the first GEM Fellowship, and has remained an instructor on agriculture, poverty, and food security since 2004. She is a member of GEM-Africa regional group.