Joannes Paulus Yimbesalu

Joannes Yimbesalu is a Mid-Career Master of Public Administration 2025 Candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is co-founder of Hali Halisi, an innovative digital platform to connect Sign Language Interpreters in Kenya with high-quality job placements, ensuring adherence to professional standards and fostering accessibility through assisted technology. Hali Halisi will thereby bridge the gap and enhance inclusion for the Deaf community in Kenya and across Africa.

Joannes is an outcome-focused humanitarian and international development expert with over a decade of experience, demonstrating leadership in engaging young people across the Global South in countries such as Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Niger, South Africa, and Cameroon. He has previously supported programs and initiatives with various development organizations such as the United Nations, the African Union, Plan International, and World Vision. His work focuses on supporting African youth in transitioning from education to employment by facilitating enhanced employment opportunities and fostering entrepreneurship skills to promote economic growth and drive innovation. 

With a strong academic background in Leadership and Community Engagement, Joannes brings a unique perspective to addressing global challenges with local solutions. While serving as the lead for Generation Unlimited, a public-private-youth partnership with UNICEF aimed at enhancing access to skill development pathways and livelihood opportunities for 20 million young Nigerians by 2030, Joannes played a pivotal role in designing and deploying digital skills development programs and supporting global learning-to-earning initiatives valued at over $5 million, reaching over 4 million young Africans with essential skills and livelihood opportunities. Joannes supported the implementation of Nigeria’s first digitized birth registration systems and led a National Youth Volunteering and advocacy campaign that recruited over 350,000 volunteers. The success of this model led to its evolution into the “Youth for Children” model, where young people are seamlessly integrated into UNICEF programs to drive significant results for children. This model is now being scaled to multiple African countries, underscoring the initiative’s success and its potential for broader replication. Currently, Joannes serves as the Executive Director and Founder of Africa Skills Alliance, a think tank focused on democratizing data around workforce development in Africa to ensure that the African workforce is well-equipped with the skills required for current and future job opportunities. Joannes holds a BSc in Clinical Laboratory Sciences from the University of Buea, Cameroon. He later obtained an MSc in Biological Sciences from New Mexico Highlands University, USA. In 2020, he earned another MA in Leadership and Community Engagement from York University, Canada. Joannes has developed a keen interest in policy design and implementation particularly in education, climate finance, and technology. 

He is a recipient of several international awards, including the A.D. King Foundation Award and the Queen Elizabeth II Young Leaders Award for his leadership and technology innovation contributions. Joannes is a published author and bilingual in English and French. As a Cheng Fellow Joannes will focus on the deployment of Hali Halisi and developing its strategic model for scale that will ensure the highest amount of impact for the Deaf community of Kenya and beyond.