International Relations
Dapo Oyewole is the Secretary General of the Conference of Speakers and Presidents of African Union Legislatures (CoSPAL) and the Senior Special Assistant on International Cooperation to the Nigerian President. He leads initiatives to strengthen legislative leadership and parliamentary diplomacy across Africa while fostering global partnerships to support Nigeria's development agenda.
Oyewole has over 20 years of experience in governance, public policy, and international development. He advised the Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, as well as ministers in the Ministry of Finance and the President’s National Planning Commission. In these roles, he improved donor coordination, international cooperation, parliamentary diplomacy, and strategic policy initiatives at both local and international levels.
His career includes positions at McKinsey & Company and the Palladium Group, where he designed development strategies for governments and donors. He collaborated with organizations such as the World Bank, the United Nations, and the Commonwealth Secretariat. Notably, he led the Policy and Strategy Team for the State Partnership for Accountability, Responsiveness, and Capability (SPARC), a flagship governance reform program of the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID).
In the civil society sector, he headed the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD-UK) and the Centre for African Public Policy and Strategy (CAPPS). He is the Founding Director of the Legislative Mentorship Initiative (LMI), which equips young people for leadership roles in the public sector. He currently serves as Chairman of the LMI Planning and Advisory Committee, overseeing the initiative’s ongoing growth and success.