Musa Kpaka is completing his PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His PhD research broadly focuses on the political economy drivers that explain patterns of economic and political outcomes across the chiefdoms of Sierra Leone.  Prior to LSE, Kpaka spent three years at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) to co-manage a multi-million-dollar project in partnership with the governments of Tanzania and Uganda. There, he led research in piloting new approaches to deliver agriculture technologies to small holder farmers in a cost-effective manner in the two countries.  

Kpaka’s other professional experience includes four years at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation where he worked to identify and fund interventions in the agriculture sector in East Africa and India. At the Gates Foundation, his signature achievement was to develop the first-generation tool to track the results from the various agriculture investments of the Foundation. Musa also worked as a consultant in the World Bank to identify effective policy interventions to improve the ease of doing business in developing and emerging economies. 

Musa Kpaka has a BSc in Economics (Whitman College) and a Master’s degree in Development Economics (Harvard University).