Biography
Hastings Chikoko is the Founder & CEO of Cities Africa. Prior to this, he served as the Senior Director of Cities at Big Win Philanthropy. He was also the global Managing Director of Regions and Mayoral Engagement & Regional Director for Africa at C40 Cities. He serves on the Advisory Board of African Centre for Cities and the Advisory Board for the African Mayoral Leadership Initiative. He chairs the Advisory Group for the African Cities Research Consortium at the Global Development Institute of University of Manchester; and was Chair of the International Strategic Advisory Group for the Global Diet and Activity Research Network under the University of Cambridge. He was one of the Board of Directors at the World Green Building Council and also sat on the Technical Advisory Group of the Global Environment Facility - GEF (Sustainable Cities and Urban Systems). He has also served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Clean Air, and the Global Board of Wetlands International. With a postgraduate degree in Cities from the London School of Economics (LSE), his work with local governments started at the City of Blantyre and later at Mchinji district municipality in Malawi. Hastings had a long career with the World Conservation Union (IUCN) in Zimbabwe, Kenya, South Africa and Switzerland; including being the Regional Director (ad Interim) for East and Southern Africa and Head of IUCN in S Africa. He was an IDRC African Mentor for policy think-tanks in Africa, and a Board Member for Africa World Heritage Fund. Hastings is an Economist (Public Finance) and a Chartered Development Finance Analyst (CDFA). Besides an MSc in Cities from LSE, he also holds an MSc in Strategic Management (UK), Postgraduate Diploma in Diplomacy (University of Geneva) and a Bsc in Economics (University of Malawi).