Dr. Aaron Alesane holds a PhD in International Development, an MSc in Development Finance, an MPhil in Agricultural Extension and a BSc in Agricultural Technology (Economics and Extension Option). He is currently the Head of the Business and Information Services Division of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Institute of Industrial Research (IIR) Ghana, where he leads in the commercialization of research outputs with industry partners as well as the management of research and development (R&D) more generally.

Prior to his present role, he taught Economics, Entrepreneurship and Finance at the Academic City University College, Ghana. He has extensive experiences in microfinance and microenterprise development space. He is currently also an Adjunct Lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, Accra, Ghana; the S. D. Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies Wa, Ghana; and the Institute of Local Government Studies, Accra Ghana.

As a Commonwealth Scholar, his research interest centered around the intersections of Finance, Sovereign Debt Management, Livelihoods, Inequality and Gender Studies. His Ph.D. thesis explored the dialectic method in the critical discourse analysis of the various financial sector reforms in Ghana, from the pre-independent era to its present state, in relation to financial inclusion of resource poor segments of the population. Grounded on the Livelisystem Framework (Dorward, 2014), he developed the Microfinance Livelisystem Framework that comprehensively situates the microfinance industry within the national and international financial and economic eco-systems and shows the interrelationships between these institutions for the provision of services. He further developed the Household Livelisystem Model (HLM) (a pooled-income intra- household decision-making model) that unpacks the interactions between the stock of households’ resources (human, physical and financial) and household activities (production, consumption and investment) in relation to the  five core societal welfare promoting institutions of markets, public  authorities, membership institutions, the larger family, and social networks in addressing risks and uncertainties in livelihoods constructions in the theatre unequal household power dynamics. His thesis further assessed the impact of access on livelihoods diversification, asset accumulation patterns and household livelihoods outcomes with a gender lens. Finally, his thesis explored the determinants of financial services uptake from the demand side of the microfinance industry that included the analysis of macroeconomic and macro- institutional variables; the microfinance institutional factors; client households and individual characteristics employing regression modelling and analysis. Dr. Alesane’s thesis has now been published with Taylor & Francis as a book: Alesane, A., 2022. Microfinance, Livelihoods and Poverty Reduction in Ghana. Taylor & Francis. London. United Kingdom. https://www.routledge.com/Microfinance-Livelihoods-and-Poverty-Reduction-in-Ghana/Alesane/p/book/9781032332628

Dr. Alesane also have almost a decade experience in development practice working with a number of international non-governmental organisations where he managed and coordinated various cross-sectoral projects and programmes including in water and sanitation, health, education, livelihoods, microfinance and microenterprise development among others. Typical examples were his coordination of the Plan International Ghana, Promoting African Grassroot Economic Empowerment (PAGES) Project worth US $5million with Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD formerly CIDA) as donors in the Central, Volta and Upper West Regions.