Yacob has an extensive career in public service, both at national and international levels, working on programmes and projects on population and housing censuses; Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS). He was the Chief of the Demographic Statistics Section of the UN Statistics Division when he retired from the UN in 2011.
Since 2011, he has supported several countries in evaluating their population and housing censuses; and trained nationals in conducting comprehensive assessments and develop strategic plans to improve their CRVS systems as a Senior Adviser in the Africa Programme on Accelerated Improvement of CRVS.
Yacob is currently supporting the Centre of Excellence for CRVS Systems in Ottawa, on a mapping of CRVS systems resources in selected African countries. He holds BSc in Statistics and MSc in Demography.