Panel speakers
International web conference: Multidimensional Resilience - Smallholder Producers and Farmers Managing Risks, 9th – 11th June, 2020
Dr. Arif Husain is Chief Economist and Director of Research, Assessments & Monitoring Division at United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Rome, Italy. Arif joined WFP in 2003 and since then he has served in many senior positions both in the field and the headquarters. He has also worked for the World Bank and taught at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. Arif’s work focuses on analysing food security and welfare conditions in developing countries to inform humanitarian response. His research interests include application of information technologies to improve humanitarian response; understanding linkages between poverty, hunger, conflict and migration; and analysing how global economic shocks impact food security, social protection and emergency and development assistance. Arif has a Ph.D. in agricultural and applied economics with a minor in forestry from the University of Minnesota.
Elizabeth Nsimadala is a young agripreneur, the President of the Pan Africa Farmers Organization (PAFO) and the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation (EAFF). She was recently appointed on the Global committee for Forest Farm Facility (FFF), sits on the Governing Council for Africa Fertilizer Financing Mechanism (AFFM) and Chairs the Governing Council of Uganda Cooperative College - Tororo among others. Elizabeth holds a Msc. In Project Planning and management from Ndejje University – in Uganda and a B.A in Social Science from Makerere University Kampala - Uganda. She has additional professional experience in cooperative development, administrative law among others. She is a passionate farmer and a cooperator, as a result of her efforts in supporting Farmers Organizations, she was recently Globally recognized by the World Farmers Organization as one of the women contributing to sustainable development.
Paul Winters is the Associate Vice-President, Strategy and Knowledge Department at the International Fund for Agricultural Development. From 2004-2015, he was a Professor of Economics at American University in Washington, DC. Before American University, he worked at the Inter-American Development Bank, the University of New England and the International Potato Center. He has published numerous articles in the areas of impact evaluation, migration, cash transfer programs, rural development and smallholder agriculture. He holds a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.
Carla Montesi is currently Director at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Development and Cooperation. She has been responsible for the Directorate “Planet and Prosperity” since September 2018. Before that (2014-2018) she was Director for Western and Central Africa. Prior to 2014, she was Director at the Directorate General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries. Initially responsible for fisheries conservation, control and structural actions for the Mediterranean and Black Sea, she has piloted maritime policy as well as fisheries and funding for the Baltic Sea, North Sea and Landlocked Member States. Formerly a lawyer in Italy who specialised in European affairs at the College of Europe in Bruges, Mrs Montesi's earlier career encompassed diverse responsibilities in the field of EU external policy for development and cooperation both at Headquarters and in EU Delegations in Africa, as well as experience in the Cabinet of EU Commissioner Emma Bonino for External Policy and Humanitarian Affairs.
Hannelore Beerlandt is an agricultural economist. Today, she is CEO of AgriCord, an international alliance of 13 agri-agencies, mandated by farmers’ organisations and their cooperative businesses (from Asia, Brazil, Canada, Europe and Senegal) to support their peers in low income countries. AgriCord finances, advices, mentors and facilitates farmers’ organisations and cooperative businesses for their organisational and sustainable economic development. There lays a strong focus on low cost innovations for access to food and financial markets, for environmental friendly solutions, for climate change adaptation and for their role in policy making. The innovations are not just about doing different things but also about doing things differently and within different stakeholder settings and mechanisms. AgriCord works in partnership with at least 600 farmers’ organisations and cooperatives on a permanent basis. The strategic orientations of AgriCord find their origine in their governing bodies which are composed of global farmers’ organisations.
Hannelore is president of Enabel, the Belgian Development Agency. Hannelore is also Board member of impact investment funds for rural development (Kampani) and member of the Advisory Board of the Institute for Development Policy of the University of Antwerp.
In 1992, Hannelore started as researcher bio-economics in the KULeuven. In 1995 she moved to South Africa where she lectured agricultural economics at the Stellenbosch University. Having returned to Belgium, she started as assistant professor with Prof. Johan Swinnen at the K.U.Leuven in 2002, focusing her research on political economy of liberalisation of food and agricultural credit markets in transition countries and in Africa. She (co-) authored several papers, books and manuals. She later started her own consultancy company International Development Innovation Services (I.D.I.S), which mainly focused on thematic formulation and evaluation of multi country programmes for rural development for bilateral and multilateral cooperations. Hannelore is mother of three children and owns a registered botanical garden in the Brabantian Ardennes in Belgium.
