16 October 2008: 16 October 2008 - Rising food prices: an opportunity for change? - Profiles of panelists and discussants

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Luca Alinovi – FAO

 

Luca Alinovi is a senior Economist, of the Agricultural and Development Economics Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. He has been leading and managing programmes and leading research on food security and agriculture policy analysis in protracted crisis for the last 15 years, both in headquarters and in Eastern and Western African countries. Alinovi has worked as a food security analyst and agricultural economist for FAO, the Italian Development Cooperation, private sector companies and the University of Florence. He has published papers on food security and complex emergencies with the Accademia dei Lincei, ODI Disasters, and recently has been a guest editor for both the special issue of Disasters on food security and complex emergencies and the book “Beyond Relief: Food security in Protracted Crises. An Italian national, he has an MSc from the Università di Firenze, Faculty of Tropical Agriculture (Agricultural Economics) and a PhD in Agricultural and Natural Resources Economics.

 

 

Mike Bushell - Syngenta International Research Centre, Jealott’s Hill

 

Mike Bushell is based at Syngenta International Research Centre, Jealott’s Hill in Berkshire.  Mike graduated with a BSc in Organic Chemistry from Liverpool and a PhD from Liverpool/University of California at Davis.  He came to Jealott’s Hill in 1980 as a Team Leader in Insecticide Research, following post-doctoral work in Cambridge.  Since 1990, Mike has held various management positions in Chemistry, Bioscience and also within Zeneca Specialties in Manchester.  He returned to Jealott’s Hill in 1999 as Sector Leader for Insect and Fungal Control.  He has previously held the roles of Head of R&T Projects, Head of Discovery and Head of Strategy and Technology, before taking up his current role as Head of Jealott’s Hill and Head of External Partnerships.

 

 

Alain Hutchinson – European Parliament

 

Elected to the European Parliament in 2004, Mr. Hutchinson is a permanent member of the Development Committee and an alternate member of the Delegation to the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly and of the "Human Rights" sub-committee, as well as Vice-Chairman of the Delegation for Relations with Maghreb Countries and the Arab Maghreb Union. For many years he has been involved in important combats. As a trade union militant, he has defended the rights of workers and their working conditions. He participated actively in the creation and management of the Brussels-Capital Region, first of all as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister for Social Affairs and Health of the French Community of Belgium, then as Junior Minister with responsibility for Housing and Energy. Alain Hutchinson has also been Minister for the Budget and Social Action of the French Community Commission.

 

As an MEP he takes an active interest in the same causes: maintaining public services, developing North-South solidarity and finally putting citizens back at the heart of the European project.

 

 

Sir John Kaputin – ACP Secretariat

 

Sir John Kaputin studied in his own home province area but then extended to Australia between 1947 and 1959. He was trained as a teacher and then a bureaucrat in the early 1960s including a four-year stint in University of Hawaii. Sir John’s political career began with his election to the House of Assembly in 1972 where he helped shape the PNG Constitution as member of the Constitutional Planning Committee. He subsequently served five terms (30 years) in the National Parliament holding ministerial positions overseeing Justice, National Planning and Development, Finance, Minerals and Energy, Foreign Affairs, and Mining and Petroleum. In September 1995, Sir John was nominated co-president of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly. For his services to the PNG government, Sir John received Queen’s awards as Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George in 1983 and as Knight Bachelor of the British Empire in 1997. He is since the 1st of March 2005 the Secretary General of the of the ACP Secretariat based in Brussels.

 

 

Cris Muyunda - Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)

 

Presently Overall Coordinator of the African Union/NEPAD Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) in the COMESA region, Cris Muyunda is a lead natural resource, agribusiness and competitiveness professional. Educated in Zambia, Australia and the US, Dr. Muyunda is strongly committed to the principles of regional integration as the real plausible way forward for the economies of Eastern and Southern Africa.

 

A graduate of the international program of the Leavy School of Business’s Executive Food and Agribusiness program at the University of Santa Clara, California, Dr. Muyunda has solid grounding in the theoretical and practical aspects applied by leading agribusiness firms in the global market place, and has a clear focus on promoting activities that will contribute to truly unlocking the African region’s vast agricultural potential. Having previously worked as a senior foreign service national at the helm of USAID/Zambia’s diversified agricultural and natural resources program, Dr. Muyunda has a strong background in practical public and private sector initiatives required to remove structural constraints and raise the profile of the African continent in the international market place.

 

 

Hansjörg Neun - CTA

 

Since May 2005, German-born Dr Hansjorg Neun, became Director of CTA. He holds a PhD. in social and economic sciences. He is the author of a thesis on "transfers of technical cooperation development projects to developing countries". With considerable field experience in Africa (especially in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Egypt), Dr Neun has managed projects and major programmes for German and European technical development agencies. He is also skilled in negotiating with governments, donors and international institutions. In addition, he has a wide-ranging knowledge of rural development, food security and natural resource management issues.

 

He also has hands-on experience of agriculture - while still very young he worked on his family's flower and vegetable market garden in Germany.

 

Before taking the helm at CTA, Dr Neun was employed as Advisor at Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

 

 

Stineke Oenema - CONCORD

 

Stineke Oenema, born in 1968, in 1987 obtained an MSC in nutrition at the Wageningen University, and in 2005 a Post Graduate Agricultural Economics at the Imperial college in London. Since 2004 she has been Food security specialist with development organisation ICCO in the Netherlands. Within ICCO she advises on the planning and programming of food security activities in about 20 countries, mostly in the area of sustainable agriculture, access to and use of land and water and nutrition. Moreover she is responsible for advocacy and policy advises for ICCO and externally. In 2004 she also joined the European Food Security Group (EFSG), working group of COncord and in 2008 she became member of the steering group of the EFSG. The EFSG has three main working areas: Food and nutritional responses in humanitarian aid, aid to agriculture, EU internal policies with an external impact (e.g. Agriculture and Agricultural trade Policies).

 

Before joining ICCO she worked with FAO on household food security and nutrition in Latin America and Vietnam, and did  consultancies in the areas of nutrition and gender (a.o. with UNICEF).

 

 

H.E. Mr. Kadré Désiré Ouédraogo – Ambassador of Burkina Faso

 

Since 2001, H.E. Mr. Kadré Désiré Ouédraogo has been Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Burkina Faso to Brussels, with responsibility for the Benelux countries, the Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as well as the Permanent Representative to the European Union and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

 

A graduate of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) in Paris, H.E. Ouédraogo also holds a degree in economics, specialising in economic affairs and economic policy, from the University of Paris I (Panthéon Sorbonne).

 

After having completed his studies in France, he returned to Burkina Faso, where he served as Adviser to the Minister for Trade and Industrial Development, where he was Head of the Financial Division of the FOSIDEC and then Financial Adviser to the Secretary General of the West African Economic Community (CEAO). In 1985 he was appointed Deputy Executive Secretary with responsibility for Economic Affairs at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Lagos in Nigeria. In 1993, H.E. Mr. Kadré Désiré Ouédraogo was appointed Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) in Dakar. He then served as Prime Minister, Head of Government of Burkina Faso, up to November 2000. From September 1996 to June 1997, he served simultaneously as Minister of Economy and Minister of Finance.

 

 

Lluis Riera Figueras – European Commission, DG Development

 

Lluis Riera Figueras is Director of the Development Policy, Thematic issues directorate, at the European Commission DG Development, from January 2007.

 

He joined the European Commission in 1987, after a ten-years experience as Professor of European Economy and International Trade. He has been Head of Unit for the Relations with the Institutions and Coastal and Western Africa at EC DG Development form 1991 to 1996, then Director for European Social Fund operations at EC DG Employment and Social Affairs from 1996 to 2002 and Director for Instruments for Structural policies for pre-accession at DG Regional Policy from 2002 to 2006.

 

 

Renwick Rose – Windward Islands Farmers Association (WINFA)

 

Renwick Rose is the Regional Co-ordinator of the Windward Islands Farmers Association (WINFA), an organization of farmers spanning the Eastern Caribbean islands of Grenada, Dominica, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. WINFA's membership includes farmers producing Fairtrade banana, rootcrop and fruit, vegetables, cane syrup, honey and its by-products and agro-processors. He is a passionate advocate for and on behalf of farmers and farm families at the national, regional and international levels on issues relating to fair trade, food security/sovereignty, equity and justice. Mr. Rose is one of the initiators of the Fairtrade movement in the Caribbean and, through WINFA, strongly promotes the empowerment of farmers and their prominent role in rural social  transformation.

 

Mr. Rose is also Chairman of the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC) of St. Vincent and the Grenadines as well as the Chairman of that country's Non-State Actors Committee for civil society involvement in EU/Caribbean cooperation.

 

His career spans over 40 years as a community organizer and leader, social and political activist, social commentator and analyst, as well as a journalist.

 

 

Eric Tollens - Catholic University of Leuven (K.U.Leuven)

 

Eric Tollens is an internationally renowned agricultural engineer, economist and agricultural engineer. He is a professor of agricultural and food economy at the Catholic University of Leuven (K.U.Leuven). He is a specialist in agricultural marketing, agricultural markets, agricultural policies and food security. He has above all worked in sub-Saharan Africa. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), a member of the Scientific and Technical Committee of AGRHYMET (Niamey), ISRA (Dakar), PRASAC-ARDESAC (N’djamena) and Chairman of the Scientific and Technical Committee for the FAO-EC project to stimulate agricultural and forestry research in the DRC. He was a member of the FAO external independent evaluation (EIE) technical team in 2006-2007 for all aspects relating to food security, technical assistance and agricultural support systems. He has more than 30 years experience in the domain of agricultural economics. He has participated in numerous missions as expert (FAO, IFAD, African Development Bank, UNCTAD, the European Commission, CGIAR, World Bank, etc.). He has above all worked in Central Africa and West Africa. He has been a member of the jury for the King Baudouin Development Prize. He has published numerous articles and several books on agricultural development. He has been a member of the CTA Board since 2008.

 

 

Steve Wiggins – ODI

 

Steve Wiggins has almost three decades worth of experience working, researching and teaching economic and management aspects of agricultural and rural development. He also has experience in rural livelihoods rural economies and household economies; governance, including management, of rural development; change in farming systems, with particular interest in dairying; credit and rural banking; environmental change. He combines this with an extensive knowledge of Latin America and Africa. He has lived in Paraguay, Bolivia, El Salvador and Kenya; and worked widely, on shorter term studies, in Africa and Latin America. During the last five years his work has included studies of livelihoods and small-scale dairying in rural Mexico, environmental policy in Ghana, food security in Bangladesh and Southern Africa - including the impact of HIV/AIDS, the rural non-farm economy, and the future of small farms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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