Dr. Eric Akobeng is a Senior Technical Adviser at the National Development Planning Commission. He is on Secondment from the Local Government Service as Coordinating Director. He is also serving as the Project Coordinator of the Project Management Unit of the NDPC. He is an Economist and Development Expert with 25 years’ experience at the intersection of economic development, budgeting, development planning, M&E, local economic development, and sustainable development.
Dr. Akobeng worked as the Chief of Section, Development Planning and Economic Affairs, at the Macroeconomics and Governance Division (MGD), United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). He completed the UNECA temporary appointment with a performance evaluation above expectations. At UNECA, he worked with the UNDP, AUC, and AfDB on the 2020 Africa Sustainable Development Report, and the Integrated Development Planning Guide for Africa. He led UN Missions to Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Botswana, Cote D’Ivoire, Malawi, and Zimbabwe to help align their National Development Plans with the SDGs and Agenda 2063 using the UNECA’s Integrated Planning and Reporting Toolkit. He made presentations on the Integrated Planning and Reporting Toolkit at the Africa’s First Time Voluntary National Review Meeting, UN Country Team Meeting, and the National Focal Persons of Small Island Developing States Meeting.
He has served as a Consultant to the UNDP and UN-OHRLLS on the preparation of the 2022 Africa Sustainable Development Report, and the Guidelines for the mainstreaming the Doha Programmne of Action into Development Plans of LDCs, respectively. He has been providing technical support to the UNDP as a Macroeconomic Expert on the preparation of the ECOWAS Resilience Strategy for West Africa. 
Dr. Akobeng worked with the Ghana Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and the Local Government Service and rose to become Chief Budget Analyst (Director) from 1999 to 2021.  He coordinated the World Bank's Village Infrastructure Project, the Community-Based Rural Development Project, and the African Development Bank's Urban Poverty Reduction Project. He served as the Coordinator of the ILO's Decent Work Country Programme, the Global Fund’s Roll Back Malaria, and the UNFPA/Ghana Population Council's Africa Youth Alliance Project. He served as the Monitoring and Evaluation Focal Person for the Ghana AIDS Commission and was adjudged the Best District Monitoring and Evaluation Focal Person in 2003 from the Ghana AIDS Commission for his outstanding work in Monitoring, Evaluation, and Strategic Plan preparation. 
Dr Akobeng obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics from the Universities of Ghana (Legon) and Manchester in the UK, respectively. He obtained his PhD in Economics from the University of Leicester in the UK. While pursuing his PhD, Dr. Akobeng won the Unitemp of the Year Award 2015 for Outstanding Teaching at the University of Leicester in his capacity as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in Economics. He also received the Leicester Award under the UK Higher Education Achievement Report in 2015 at the University of Leicester in the UK. He has published in internationally recognized peer-reviewed journals including Oxford Development Studies, Journal of Economic Studies, the Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Journal of Economic Policy Reform, South African Journal of Economics, African Development Review, Telecommunication Policy, and International Journal of Social Economics. He has made expert comments on economic development in Africa in the media landscape. He has a lecturing affiliation with the University of Lancaster Ghana.