Victoria Manya is a lawyer, researcher, and policy advocate with over a decade of experience working at the intersection of entrepreneurship, technology, and inclusive development in Africa. She serves as Knowledge Manager at the INCLUDE Knowledge Platform, where she supports evidence-based policy engagement, knowledge mobilisation, and multistakeholder collaboration across themes such as youth employment, digital transformation, and green transitions. Her work has shaped high-impact initiatives, including the development of a standardized solar energy curriculum in Nigeria, legislative knowledge-sharing workshops on labor-based incentives for renewable energy, and INCLUDE’s contributions to global policy spaces like the UN ECOSOC Youth Forum, COP29, and the UN Summit of the Future. She has worked closely with legislators and national institutions to ensure that INCLUDE’s research informs inclusive, youth- and gender-responsive policymaking. A PhD researcher at Leiden University’s African Studies Centre, her research focuses on digitally enabled startup ecosystems in Nigeria and Ghana, particularly issues of gender, informality, and innovation. She co-led the drafting of Nigeria’s Online Harms Protection Bill, a pioneering effort to balance innovation with digital rights and safety. She also played a key role in the passage of the Nigeria Startup Act and contributed to the Not Too Young To Run constitutional amendment, which expanded political participation for young Nigerians. Through her work at INCLUDE Victoria brings deep experience in building South–South and South–North knowledge partnerships and advancing practical, people-centered policies across Africa.
