Betty N. Wainaina is the Program Director of the Multilateral Reform Program at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation (CIC).
She is a social development specialist with 18+ years of diverse experience in the development sector, working in several countries, including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, East Timor, Malawi, and Ghana. She has designed programs aimed at promoting institutional strengthening and deepening governance arrangements, including working with executive branches of government, legislatures, local authorities, and civil society.
Her previous roles have been with the World Bank as an economist in the Kenya, Somalia, and Comoros country programmes, respectively. She later joined the Global Centre for Conflict Security and Development, which sought to deepen and advance the community of practice within the World Bank on issues affecting fragile and conflict-affected states. In this role, she supported the engagement of the World Bank at both global and country levels with the g7+ Secretariat and the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and State Building in operationalizing the New Deal for engagement in fragile states. She has also worked for the Heinrich Böll Foundation and has served as a consultant for various United Nations (UN) agencies and other international development organizations.
She is passionate about governance issues and addressing institutional arrangements and capacities that compromise development. She is also a champion for gender equality and the advancement of women and girls.
She possesses a master’s degree in environmental economics from the University of Kent in the UK and a first degree in Environmental Planning and Management from Kenyatta University in Kenya.
