Dr. Joachim Ezeji received his PhD in 2013 on his thesis: ‘‘Increasing the resilience of water systems to extreme weather events’’ submitted to the School of Civil & Building Engineering, Loughborough University, United Kingdom .

Dr. Ezeji offers an alternative approach on how water, climate and environmental projects can be better managed for better outputs and outcomes. This approach, which is rooted in the coupled social-ecological concept is quite distinct from traditional approaches and has a nexus with the preservation and valorization of ecosystem, climate science and water resources.

He regularly provides guidance on leveraging the optimum understanding of socio-ecological resilience at broader scales and actively work to manage and nurture it using appropriate work plans. Incentives for generating ecological knowledge and translating it into information that can be used in project management /governance is a task he pursues like a mission.

In addition to founding the non-profit: Rural Africa Water Development Project (RAWDP), he also, consults for organizations’ such as the World Bank, the African Development Bank, Tetra Tech, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and the US Agency for International Development. He presently sits on the board of Nuel-Mark Foundation.

Dr. Joachim Ezeji has demonstrated leadership in providing strategic values to bolstering water resources asset resilience to climate uncertainties across Africa, particularly in Nigeria, Gambia, Angola, Kenya, and Uganda especially during emergencies. For example, he ensured substantial reduction in disaster damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services by assessing the preparedness for increasing organizational resilience of water utilities in the Niger Delta to the impacts of extreme weather events and developed adaptation strategies to increase organizational resilience in comparison to other global deltas like Nile, Ganges/Brahmaputra, Mekong, Indus, Mississippi and Irrawaddy etc. His strategic inputs included the integration of data and decision-making processes across the utility’s engineering, finance, accounting, maintenance and operations functions to reduce and manage climate disaster. By so doing he assisted decision makers to explore how operating and maintaining existing assets and capital investments were likely to help meet demands and affect current and long-term budgets.

Also, while consulting for JICA  he was directly involved in the development of JICA’s policies and strategies on water and climate change, and all technical cooperation, grant or loan assistance formulation including assessment of potential projects and provision of assistance to government ministries, Water boards and River basins in Nigeria. Of particular importance is the drafting of the Nigeria’s Water Resources Master plan, and the development of a concept paper that outlines the country’s strategic shift to a climate-resilient development, including communication strategies.

Dr. Joachim Ezeji successfully established the work of the inter-ministerial working group on climate resilience in Nigeria, as well as facilitating and guiding the work of the inter-ministerial working group He was also involved in the capacity building of partner government ministries/ agencies, in addition to Emergency Response/Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) etc including identifying new areas related to meeting the requirements of GEF and GCF related priorities.

Dr Joachim Ezeji is a member of the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses (AMMA) group and has presented papers in some of its conferences and workshops. He has won the following awards for his work;

• Emerging River Professional Award, Australia
• Watson International Scholar of the Environment, Brown University, USA
• Ashoka fellow, Washington, DC, USA
• The Tech Museum of Innovation Environment Award, San Jose, CA USA