Valentina Okaru-Bisant

Dr. Valentina Okaru-Bisant is the is the CEO, Founder, General Counsel and Social Entrepreneur at Afrocosmo Development Impact, LLC, Maryland, USA( ACDI). She is also a US and Nigerian attorney, professor, manager, entrepreneur, columnists, author, mentor, coach, philanthropist and former diplomat with over 15 years experience working in academia, law firm, private and multilateral organizations. We (@ACDI) have impactful results in business, trade, economic development, environment, infrastructure, energy, gender and water sectors. Val has authored extensively (scholarly and business publications) in those sectors. We ( ACDI) provide advisory, transactions and street law form of capacity building services to small & medium enterprises, private and public entities in trade, environment and economic development. We also work in USA, Afro-Caribbean and African diaspora space. ACDI hosts, organizes and executes many high -level large and small meetings & conferences.

Val is an adjunct business and trade professor and taught for over 10 years at the Catholic University of America. She also taught at the George Washington University, the Elliott School of International Affairs, Washington DC.

She was one of the pioneering members of Jean-Roger Mercier’s initial World Bank project environmental and social impact review team that categorized and reviewed project compliance with World Bank operational procedures/ policies. She & her team initiated the process of formulating World Bank operational policies, including OP 7.50 (international waters), OP 4.01 (environmental assessment and OP 4.12 (involuntary resettlement). She & her World Bank team (Pauline Boerma and Mike Garn) also monitored & supervised the $300 multi-donor financed RUSAFIYA water supply project. Within the framework of the project, they introduced the concept of public/private partnerships and community based participation to World Bank management ( as referenced in Maggi Black, Learning What Works, A Twenty Year View on International Water & Sanitation Cooperation).

She is a graduate of a Stanford law School, California; the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Massachusetts and the London School of Economics, England.