Kay Atanda

Kay is an international sustainability and development expert with over a decade of experience in multilateral organizations and government, specializing in climate adaptation, sustainable finance, and policy innovation. He supports the Grantham Research Institute’s engagement with the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action (housed within the World Bank).
Background
At the World Bank, Kay led the Small States Secretariat, focusing on countries vulnerable to exogenous shocks such as climate change and natural disasters. He also worked on initiatives around women’s economic empowerment, poverty and inequality measurement, and multi-stakeholder partnerships including coordinating the SDG 14.7 technical group and spearheading a World Bank-UN Blue Economy report. As a founding member of the World Bank’s Anti-Racism Task Force, Kay led research efforts on leveraging analytics and operations to address discrimination.
Before joining the World Bank, Kay worked with the UN on sustainable development, where he led efforts to combat the global health threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). He also worked on drug policy reforms during his time in the Obama White House.
Kay holds master’s degrees from Columbia University (human rights and foreign policy), where he serves on the Alumni Board of Directors, and from the University of Oxford (public policy and sustainability), where he was an Eisenhower Global Scholar. He graduated summa cum laude from The City College of New York with a bachelor’s in political science and public policy.
Research interests
- Climate adaptation finance
- Sustainable public and private climate finance
- Climate vulnerability measurements
- Environment, social and corporate governance (ESG)
- Blue economy
- International climate politics
- Decolonizing development