Tade Akin Aina, currently the Program Director, Higher Education and Libraries in Africa for the Carnegie Corporation of New York, obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology at the University of Lagos, Nigeria, a Masters in Sociology of Development at the London School of Economics, and a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Sussex.  He has served as Consultant for many agencies including UNDP, UNICEF, UN-HABITAT, United Nations University and the World Bank on a wide range of development issues such as urban poverty, higher education reform, governance, environment and development.  He is a founding member and member Board of Trustees of the Nigerian Environmental Study Team (NEST) and founder of the Lagos Group for the Study of Human Settlements.  He currently serves on the boards of Winrock International, USA, Seeding Labs, USA , the King Baudouin Foundation-USA and the Kenya Human Rights Commission.  He has also served on other boards of national and international organizations amongst which are the Council of Management of the African Books Collective, UK, the Habitat International Coalition Council and the Governing Board of the Canadian University Overseas (CUSO).  Tade was appointed full Professor, Department of Sociology at the University of Lagos, Nigeria with effect from 1993 and served as Deputy Executive Secretary (publications) at the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), Dakar, Senegal from 1993 to 1998.  He worked with the Ford Foundation in the Nairobi office from 1998 to 2008 and served as acting Representative for a short period of time between 2001 and 2002 in the Cairo Office.

He was the Representative, Office for Eastern Africa and served on the Program Advisory Committee of the Foundation's International Fellowships Program (IFP) and the Steering Committee of the Ford Foundation's Special Initiative in Africa (SIA), now Trust Africa.  Tade Aina has authored and co-edited 10 books/monographs, 34 chapters in books, 23 articles in journals and learned publications, and several conference papers and addresses. He was Editor of Africa Development between 1993 and 1998.  He is currently one of the Editors of Environment and Urbanization: the journal of the International Institute for Environment and Development, London; International Sociology, Netherlands and the Africa Review of Books, CODESRIA, and Dakar. He was an Editorial Advisory Board member of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, London between 1999 and 2005.   He currently serves as the Joint Chair of the Executive Committee of the 7 Foundations’ Partnership on Higher Education in Africa (PHEA).

 His publications include Health, Habitat and Underdevelopment (London: IIED, 1986), The Challenge of Sustainable Development in Nigeria, co-edited with Ademola Salau (Ibadan: NEST, 1990), Child Development and Nutrition in Nigeria, co-edited with M.F. Zeitlin and F.E. Etta (Lagos: UNICEF, 1992), The Experience of Migration in Africa, co-edited with Jonathan Baker (Uppsala: The Nordic African Institute, 1995), Globalization and Social Policy in Africa: Research Directions and Issues (Dakar: CODESRIA, 1997), Globalization and Social Policy in Africa (Dakar: CODESRIA, 2004) co-edited with CSL Chachage and Elisabeth Annan-Yao; Beyond Benign Neglect: Early Childhood Care, Development and Nutrition in Metropolitan Lagos, Nigeria(Lagos: Malthouse Press, 2008) co-authored with Ibinabo Agiobu-Kemmer, Florence Ebam Etta, Marian Zeitlin and Kelebogile Setilone.