PhD Candidates

Sabine Mensah

With over 25 years of leadership experience, Sabine has built a distinguished career advancing financial inclusion, digital payment systems, and mobile money across Africa, the United States, and Canada. Since 2021, she has served as Deputy CEO of AfricaNenda Foundation, where she leads policy, advocacy, and capacity development through strategic partnerships, high-level convenings, and thought leaderships. Sabine is the architect behind AfricaNenda’s annual reports: the State of Inclusive Instant Payment Systems SIIPS report in Africa. From 2015 to 2021, she managed the United Nations Capital Development Fund’s Regional Digital Hub in West and Central Africa, driving inclusive digital economy programs and spearheading UNCDF’s global digital infrastructure initiatives. Earlier in her career, she spent 15 years in the remittance sector with Western Union, shaping strategies and delivering impact across three continents, while also consulting extensively for Africa’s mobile money industry.

Sabine F. Mensah is a Certified Digital Finance Practitioner accredited by the Digital Frontier Institute. She holds an MBA from Central Michigan University (USA) and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from the Institut Franco-Américain de Management (France). Her fluency in both English and French allows her to seamlessly operate across diverse cultural and professional landscapes, providing a unique perspective to her work.

Sabine’s Executive PhD research examines the transformative role of Instant Payment Systems (IPS) in Africa, with a focus on designing inclusive frameworks and evaluating their socio-economic impacts. The research will dissect the evolution of IPS in Africa and how to transition them to inclusive IPS, building on global best practices and taking a best-fit approach. It will also investigate the impact of inclusive IPS on financial inclusion, trade and economic development in Africa and provide insights linking legal, regulatory and technological architecture to the needed impact on the ground. Sabine’s work aims to deliver actionable recommendations for policymakers and regulators to build resilient, equitable financial ecosystems.

Sabine’s lifelong commitment is to bridge innovation, policy, and inclusion to create digital financial systems that leave no one behind. Her vision is to empower women, youth, and marginalized communities to not just survive, but thrive in the digital economy, inspiring a new era of financial health.