El Hadji Niasse - Head West Africa

El Hadji Niasse is the Head of West Africa at Ayani and acts as a senior consultant primarily in engagements related to youth and women enterprise, microfinance, training and evaluation. El hadji has worked in the development sector for over 20 years with experience that spans about 15 African countries. He has participated in more than ten project evaluation assignments, including document reviews, field work preparation and implementation, development of tools and conducting interviews, and report production. El hadji has also been involved in different socio-economic empowerment program design and implementation including development of training materials and conducting training (including classroom, retreat, mentoring, and coaching) for different target groups of MSMEs.

Prior to joining Ayani in 2012, El hadji coordinated a USAID program in Senegal promoting youth empowerment. From 2009 to 2010 he was regional Coordinator for Etimos Africa, an Italian consortium promoting ethical finance by giving credit to the fair trade sector and the social economy in Italy and all around the world. Before joining Etimos, El hadji worked with New Africa Rating, an initiative from different African microfinance consultants to promote social performance measurements in rating exercises. He has also held the role of Regional Coordinator for Microfin Afric, a network for microenterprise and microfinance institutions which seeks to upgrade the capacity of African MFIs targeting women via gender mainstreaming interventions. El hadji is currently involved with prominent initiatives in Africa focused on youth entrepreneurship, empowerment, and leadership including the Young African Leaders program (YALI). He is based in Senegal and works in French and English.