Kefa Simiyu

Kefa Simiyu is the inaugural co-recipient of the Financial Inclusion Prize awarded by the Central Bank of Kenya in 2022 for his work “Explaining Gambling Behavior among the Youth in Kenya”. He is also a Global Finalist of the World Resources Institute’s Lee Shipper Memorial Scholarship on Sustainable Transportation and Energy Efficiency in 2022. He holds a Master of Arts in Economics degree from the University of Nairobi and Bachelor of Economics and Statistics (First Class Honors) from the same institution. In 2016, he was the University of Nairobi’s Rotaract Scholarship recipient, and; beginning October 2021, he is a member to the Pan-African Young Economists Network (YEN) under the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). He doubles up as a member to the Young Scholars Initiative (YSI), Founder to the Economics Scholar Panel, a research trainee at the University of Nairobi Committee on Fiscal Studies, and almost became a Knight Hennessy Scholar recently. His research lies at the intersection of gender, social sustainability, economics of education, and social finance in attempts to rethink development economics and behavioral economics. He is a network member to the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), an avid reader, and researcher. His convictions anchor on Abhijit Banerjee’s quote, “We build upon and benefit from the works of others” as well as Germano Mwabu’s quote, “There is a kind of learning that happens outside the classroom.”    

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