Ali Zayaan Shaafiu is a policy and analytics consultant with 9 years of experience across policy development, economics, social policy, strategic planning, and data analytics. He has worked with public sector bodies, businesses, NGOs, and development organizations.

As Director at the Special Programs Unit of the President’s Office, he built health-sector performance monitoring systems, covering data collection guidance, monitoring & evaluation frameworks, reporting requirements, and analyst training. These systems increased data usability over five-fold from baseline, and were used to support decisions linked to major service improvements, including around 70% reductions in medical waitlists and the expansion of video consultations to 55 islands.

As a consultant, he supports organisations with strategy and action planning, policy messaging and presentation, implementation guidance, stakeholder consultations, and evidence-based briefs that lay out options, trade-offs, and risks. He has led multi-stakeholder research and publications across topics including governance and politics, financial inclusion, gender equity, and child and family welfare. Having worked closely with AI since 2021, he is deeply familiar with practical use cases, tool and model selection, workflow integration, and the market landscape for AI/LLM tools.