Finian Ali is a nutrition advocate, migration scholar, and development research fellow from Nigeria with over nine years of progressive experience working across local and international development spaces. In the area of nutrition, his work focuses on strengthening advocacy, policy communication, and community-led action to advance nutrition, equity, and social development, particularly among marginalized and vulnerable populations.
Driven by a strong commitment to inclusion, Finian specialises in youth mobilisation, grassroots organising, and nutrition governance, amplifying youth voices to bridge the gap between policy commitments and lived realities. He currently serves as the National Youth Coordinator for the Scaling Up Nutrition Civil Society Network in Nigeria, where he established the country’s first youth network within the SUN Movement – the SUN Civil Society Youth Network Nigeria.
He is also the State Coordinator for the Civil Society Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN), and contributes to national and sub-national nutrition governance as a member of the National Nutrition Technical Working Group (NNTWG), the National Council on Food and Nutrition (NCFN), and the Enugu State Committee on Food and Nutrition.
Finian has represented Nigerian youth and civil society on prominent global platforms. His international speaking engagements include delivering the Youth Declaration at the Nutrition for Growth (N4G 2025) Summit in Paris before world leaders, speaking at the Royal Society in London (2025) during the Fabian Society’s launch of “Promising Development: The Future of Aid in an Uncertain World,” and participating as a speaker at the Women Deliver 2023 Conference in a session on catalysing collective action through gender-transformative nutrition.
He holds a Master’s degree in Migration Studies and a Bachelor’s degree in Applied Biochemistry, and is widely regarded for his energetic leadership, strategic insight, and ability to mobilise young people and communities toward sustainable nutrition and development outcomes.