4 July 2007: Challenges to rural development in ACP countries - Profiles of panelists and discussants

Denise Auclair

Denise Auclair works on issues related to European Union development policy for CIDSE - Caritas Europa, two Catholic NGO networks with over 50 member organizations in wider Europe. She has recently led a research project resulting in the CIDSE/Caritas report, “The EU’s Footprint in the South: Does European Community development cooperation make a difference for the poor?” (March 2007), drawing upon the views of civil society and other key actors in Bangladesh, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Zambia.

Al Binger

Policy advisor to the Executive Director of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre located in Belmopan, Belize, Visiting Professor at Saga University Institute of Ocean Energy Studies in Saga, Japan and Director of his own company Trysee Group based in Washington DC, USA. He is in his third three year term as a member of the United Nations Committee for Development Policy. Professor and Director of the University of the West Indies Centre for Environment and Development in Kingston, Jamaica, from 1997 to 2005, he was also director of the Global Environment Division of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1990 to 1996. He was founding Executive Director of the Biomass Users Network located in San Jose Costa Rica from 1984 to 1989. he was a Barbara Ward Fellow at the International Institute fro environment and Development in Washington DC, USA now part of the World Resources Institute in Washington DC, USA. His professional career started as research scientist at the Scientific Research Council of the Jamaican Government from 1981 through 1984. Educated as a Chemical engineer, Biophysicist and Agronomist, he attended the Columbia University in New York, the University of California Los Angeles, and the University of Georgia.

Mamadou Cissokho

Mamadou Cissokho is an agro-pastoral farmer in Bamba-Thialene Koumpentoum (Tambacounda), Senegal. He exploits 20 to 30 ha each year (pearl millet, sorghum, maize, peanuts.. ).He is a member of Ententes des Groupements Associés, his association of farmers in Senegal, advisor for FONGS and honorary President of CNCR and ROPPA (Network of West Africa Farmers Organisations). The ROPPA has been established in July 2000 in Cotonou at the occasion of a meeting between a hundred of Farmers Organisations representatives. It currently represents the Farmers Organisations from 10 West African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo).

Thomas Elhaut

Thomas Elhaut joined IFAD in 1983 and held various positions such as Senior Economist for Africa in the Economic Planning Division of the Economic Planning Department of the Fund. In 1994 he became the Lead Economist in the Office of the Assistant President of the Programme Management Department. His main responsibilities included: the facilitation of the process for formulating operational policy and strategy for the Fund; supporting the Assistant President in the strategic aspects of the planning and monitoring of the Programme of Work and Budget. In June 2004 Thomas Elhaut became the Director of IFAD’s Asia and Pacific Division. Beside his core responsibilities as manager of the regional operations (loan and grant funded) his main areas of strategic interest include the harmonization agenda and the need for new aid modalities and revisited operating models; regional cooperation within the Asia region; pro-poor policy and institutional change in a region characterized by high growth, effective rural poverty reduction, but continued concerns about human security, vulnerability of the rural poor and risk.

Marcel Mazoyer

Marcel Mazoyer is Professor at the Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon (INA P-G) and has succeeded to René Dumont as the Director of the Comparative Agriculture and Agricultural Development Chair. Marcel Mazoyer has been Head of the INRA’s Rural Economics and Sociology Department (1972-1975) and President of the FAO Programme Committee (1983-1993). Among his fundamental bibliography:

• Les débuts de l’agriculture, Essai, Le Pommier, January 2006;

• La fracture agricole et alimentaire mondiale mondiale, with Laurence Roudart, Etude Universalis, January 2006;

• Histoire des agriculteurs du monde: du Néolithique à la crise contemporaine, with Laurence Roudart, Points Seuil, april 2002.

   

Hansjörg Neun

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).

Ferdinand Nyabenda

Ferdinand Nyabenda is Assistant Secretary General for Sustainable Economic Development at the Secretariat of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States. He is a career diplomat and served as Burundi’s Ambassador to the Benelux States, Great Britain and the European Union, after representing his country in a number of other capital cities. He has also occupied other key political posts in Burundi (diplomatic advisor to the President and the Prime Minister) and worked as an independent consultant.

Bernard Petit

Bernard Petit is the Deputy Director General in the Directorate general of Development in the Commission. He holds a P h D of the Paris University in European economy, a Diploma of the department of European studies from the University of Paris and is graduated from the School of Business Management. M. Petit joined the Commission in 1971 and has always worked in development issues. Before becoming Deputy Director General, he was Director of Development policies and before has led several divisions, in particular financing, programming, macroeconomic support, forward planning. Beyond his responsibilities for global and sectoral policies, he chairs the Interservice Quality Support Group responsible for coherence and quality of Commission’s country strategy papers for all the regions of the world. In addition, Bernard Petit was the head of the task-force negotiating the Cotonou Agreement (1998-2000) and the chief negotiator for the revision of this Agreement (2004-2005).

Michael Waithaka

Michael is an agricultural economist and has previously worked with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute both in Nairobi. Michael works now for ASARECA, the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa. He has been appointed the manager of the Policy and Advocacy Programme (former ECAPAPA and FOODNET).

Michael Wales

Michael is the Principal Adviser in the FAO Investment Centre. He has over 35 years experience in development, including 17 years in the field in countries in Eastern and Southern Africa, including time as an out-posted World Bank staff member in Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia, and field time in South America. His main expertise is in agricultural and rural development. Has led a large number of missions on sector studies, project identification and preparation work for World Bank, African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank and IFAD in many parts of Africa and Asia. At present, he is responsible for managing the strategic planning of the Investment Centre, in particular strengthening capacity to work with the private sector and skills in public financial management for the agriculture sector. He is also the co-chair of the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development (GDPRD), aimed at enhancing aid effectiveness.

Steve Wiggins

Steve 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.