Temidire Alesh

Temidire Alesh is a Senior Policy Associate at J-PAL Africa, promoting evidence-based policies and programs on Girls’ Education and Empowerment in West Africa.

A Nigerian native, born in the US and raised in the Republic of Benin, Temidire is a multilingual (French, Yoruba, English), pan-African feminist, and first-generation college graduate deeply passionate about eliminating gender-based barriers that African girls and women face in schools and the workforce.

Prior to J-PAL, she was the Regional Lead Researcher for West, Central, and Northern Africa on a Feminist Entities Mapping Study with the African Women’s Development Fund. She previously worked as a Program Officer with The Global Fund’s Community, Rights, and Gender Department in Geneva and as a consultant with The World Bank’s Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice in DC. She also designed Life Skills and STEM programs for girls with the Peace Corps in Togo and was a Founding Member of The New Economy Skills Accelerator in Nigeria, training youth on software development and facilitating their job placement.

She serves as a Gender Leader on The Bloom, a social impact careers platform with 30,000+ subscribers, where she connects young African women with resources and networks to build meaningful careers in the social impact sector.

She holds a Master’s from Georgetown University, where she specialized in Gender, Labor Markets, and Social Finance, and was awarded a full scholarship.