Val Okaru-Bisant has over 15 years of high-level advisory and work experience in economic development, business, trade, water and gender sectors.
She is the CEO, Founder and General Counsel at Afrocosmo Development Impact, LLC, Maryland, USA, a company that provides due diligence, research, match-making, training and advisory services to small and medium enterprises and governments in global trade, investments and development space.
Val is also an adjunct professor at the Catholic University of America and taught for several years at the George Washington University, the Elliott School of International Affairs, Washington DC.
She has over 15 business and scholarly publications and has private sector and World Bank experience. She also moderates and presents her research at many high -level meetings and conferences.
She was one of the pioneering members of Jean-Roger Mercier’s initial World Bank project environmental review team that categorised and reviewed project compliance with bank procedures.
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Okaru-Bisant and her team started 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).
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Val and her World Bank team (Pauline and Mike) also monitored and supervised the $300 multi-donor financed RUSAFIYA water supply project and within the framework of the project, they introduced the concept of community based participation to World Bank management (as referenced in Maggi Black, Learning What Works, A Twenty Year View on International Water & Sanitation Cooperation).
Her 2011 published law review article also spearheaded the concept of corruption risk insurance coverage which some prominent Banks adopted in their portfolios.
Val has a Doctor of Science of Law degree from Stanford Law School – Stanford University, where she was a recipient of a fellowship grant award from the Morrison Institute for Population and Resources Studies, and from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a Masters in International Relations from Tufts University, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, a Master of Laws from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor of Laws (Honors) from University of Jos.
She also has a Certificate in French language from the C.A.V.E.L, University of Nice. She is a licensed attorney with bar admissions in the United States (Connecticut) and Nigeria. Val is on the advisory committee and board of several organisations.
She provides services that include negotiation, corporate training, public relations, management consulting, legal consulting, business consulting, corporate law, business law and training.
Val has written articles on ‘Overcoming Institutional and Legal Barriers that Prevent Abused Females from Accessing Justice in Fragile Nigerian Regions’ and ‘Overcoming Challenges in the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency’s Risk Insurance Coverage to Private Water investors’ among others.
