CIF Secretariat

Erastus is a political economist who has vast experience working with SMEs and innovative start-ups. He has special interest in the creation and deployment of sustainable urban investments through engagement with private sector entities.

Between 2006 and 2010, he worked with private medical practitioner SMEs from Ecuador, Chile, Argentina and Peru specializing in Radiology and was an investment analyst and software developer with the Kinema Street group of SMEs in Kyoto, Japan.

After stints in both Ecuador and Japan, he helped set up an incubation hub, @ilabAfrica — which is a is a Centre of Excellence in ICT Innovation and Development at Strathmore University. He also worked with innovators at the Ushahidi crowdsourcing platform, thereby helping to set up over 20 start-ups by young entrepreneurs in Africa.

In UN-Habitat, Erastus has been part of the team that conceptualized and established the Capital Advisory Platform in 2018 that has now evolved into the Cities Investment Facility.

Erastus holds a Masters’ in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics and is fluent in Japanese, Arabic, English, Spanish and French.

Jonas Le Thierry d’Ennequin is a Franco-German urbanist specialized in sustainable infrastructure development in African cities. Before joining the Cities Investment Facility, Jonas acquired extensive international experience across the private, non-profit and academic sectors, working at the nexus of urban development, strategic communications and stakeholder engagement. He is finishing up his PhD at University College London (UCL) in early 2025. His research examines the interaction between new infrastructure developments and the existing infrastructures they are built on. His doctoral work involved in-depth field studies on solid waste management in Dakar, Senegal.

Jonas holds an MSc in Urban Development Planning from UCL and a BA in Global Challenges from Leiden University College and Universidad de Chile. He is fluent in French, German, English and Spanish. As a young scholar with practical expertise, Jonas brings deep knowledge in sustainable urbanism and infrastructure resilience in emerging economies.