UNU - Cornell Africa Series

Akinwumi A. Adesina, Interim Vice President, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, the Rockefeller Foundation

Akin Adesina is an agricultural economist with over 20 years of professional experience in African agriculture, development policy and rural development. He is currently an Associate Director (food security) at The Rockefeller Foundation. He is also the interim vice president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) - a new entity created by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to bring the green revolution to Africa.

Dr. Adesina has worked in various senior research leadership positions in international agricultural research centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), including as principal economist and social science research coordinator for the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) (1995-1998); principal economist and coordinator for West Africa Rice Economics Task Force, West Africa Rice Development Association (WARDA) (1990-1995); and assistant principal economist, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) (India and Mali, 1988-1990). He was a member of the CGIAR high-level panel for programmatic and institutional re-alignment of the CGIAR in Africa. Dr. Adesina helped to organize the landmark Africa Fertilizer Summit for African Heads of States at which major decisions to solve Africa's fertilizer crisis were reached by over 40 governments.

Christopher Barrett, Professor, Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University

Chris Barrett is International Professor of Applied Economics and Management and co-Director of the African Food Security and Natural Resources Management program at Cornell University. He holds degrees from Princeton (A.B. 1984), Oxford (M.S. 1985) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (dual Ph.D. 1994) and worked as a staff economist with the Institute for International Finance in Washington, DC in the 1980s. At Cornell, he currently teaches an undergraduate course on Contemporary Controversies in the Global Economy and graduate courses on the Microeconomics of International Development, Poverty and Well-Being in Africa and Rural Livelihoods and Biological Resources.

There are three basic, interrelated thrusts to Prof. Barrett's research program. The first concerns poverty, hunger, food security, economic policy and the structural transformation of low-income societies. The second considers issues of individual and market behavior under risk and uncertainty. The third revolves around the interrelationship between poverty, food security and environmental stress in developing countries. Professor Barrett has published or in press 10 books and more than 170 journal articles and book chapters. He has been principal investigator (PI) or co-PI on more than $17 million in extramural research grants from the National Science Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, the Rockefeller Foundation, USAID and other sponsors. He serves as editor of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, and as an associate editor or editorial board member of the African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Environment and Development Economics, the Journal of African Economies and World Development and was previously President of the Association of Christian Economists. He has served on a variety of boards and has won several university, national and international awards for research and teaching.

Joachim von Braun, Director General, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI))

Joachim von Braun has been director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) since 2002. He guides and oversees the Institute's efforts to provide research-based sustainable solutions for ending hunger and malnutrition. Under his leadership, IFPRI has continued to grow, and has significantly expanded its teams based in Africa, Asia, and Latin America in response to research challenges and partners' needs. Director von Braun previously served as director of the Center for Development Research (ZEF) and professor of Economics and Technological Change at the University of Bonn. He was also professor of Food Economics and Policy at Kiel University, Germany. He received his doctoral degree in agricultural economics from the University of Goettingen, Germany in 1978.

IFPRI is a member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Within the CGIAR, von Braun has helped to organize the creation of a Global Food and Agriculture University, and chairs a platform on agriculture and health and one that liaises with the private sector. Director von Braun serves on the boards of several academic journals, as well as on the international advisory boards of a number of research and policy organizations. From 2000 to 2003 he was president of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE).

Jean-Marc Coicaud, head of the United Nations University, Office at the United Nations in New York.

Dr. Coicaud was Senior Academic Officer in the Peace and Governance Programme at UNU in Tokyo from 1996 to 2003. Before joining UNU, he served in the Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary-General as a speechwriter for Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1992-1996). A former fellow at Harvard University (Center for International Affairs, Department of Philosophy and Harvard Law School from 1986 to 1992), Coicaud has held appointments such as Cultural Attaché with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Legislative Aide with the European Parliament (Financial Committee), Associate Professor at the University of Paris, and Visiting Professor at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. Coicaud holds a Ph.D. in political science-law from the Sorbonne and a Doctorat d'Etat from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques of Paris. In addition, he holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in literature and linguistics.

Jean-Marc Coicaud is the author of L'introuvable démocratie autoritaire (1996), Légitimité et Politique (Presses Universitaires de France, 1997), translated in Japanese as Seijiteki Seitoseitoha Nanika: Ho, Dotoku, Sekinin ni Kansuru Kosatsu (Fujiwara Shoten, Tokyo, 2000), Politics and Legitimacy: A Contribution to the Study of Political Right and Political Responsibility (Cambridge University Press, 2002) (also available in Spanish, Chinese and Arabic). He co-authored (with Charles A. Kupchan, Emmanuel Adler, and Yuen Foong Khong) Power in Transition: The Peaceful Change of International Order (United Nations University Press, 2001). In 2007, he has published the following books: Beyond the National Interest (United States Institute of Peace Press), and Limits of the UN/Future of the UN (in Japanese with Fujiwara Shoten).

Jean-Marc Coicaud is a member of the Board of Directors of the Academic Council for the United Nations Systems (ACUNS) and a member of the Advisory Board of Global Policy Innovations (New York). He also serves as an adviser for the Fondation pour l'Innovation Politique (Paris).

Ian Darnton-Hill, Senior Adviser, Child Survival and Nutrition, UNICEF

Trained as a public health physician, Dr. Darnton-Hill has over 20 years of practical experience in a variety of health-related organizations and in different countries. His fields of expertise vary from public health interventions, heath policy, to the analysis of national and other programmes, with an emphasis on public health nutrition.

For the last three years, Dr. Darnton-Hill occupied different positions as Officer-in-Charge, Acting Chief of the Nutrition Section at UNICEF HQ, as well as Senior Adviser for Child Survival and Nutrition. His work focuses on analysis and action-oriented recommendations to promote child and maternal health, and to improve public health nutrition, particularly in the prevention and control of micronutrient malnutrition. Previously to joining UNICEF, Dr. Darnton-Hill worked in different institutions and held different positions. He was a visiting Associate Professor at the Institute of Human Nutrition, Columbia University in New York. He was also vice-President for Programs and Director of Health and Nutrition in the Helen Keller International.

Dr. darnton-Hill regularly serves on UN Technical Expert and other committees, including chairing for 5 years the Micronutrient Working Group of the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition. He has also published over 100 publications in peer-group reviewed journals, and academic appointments, covering a range of public health nutrition issues.

Stuart Gillespie, Senior Research Fellow

Stuart Gillespie currently specializes in action research on the interactions between HIV/AIDS and food and nutrition security and their implications for development policy and practice. Gillespie is a co-founder and director of RENEWAL, the Regional Network on AIDS, Livelihoods and Food Security, based in eastern and southern Africa. Other work has focused on understanding 'what works' in malnutrition reduction, scaling up community driven development, and developing methodologies for community capacity analysis. Before joining IFPRI in 1999, he worked with various international agencies, bilateral agencies, and nongovernmental organizations on nutrition policy analysis, information systems development, and monitoring and evaluation. His regional expertise in Sub-Saharan Africa focuses on Uganda, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Eritrea, Madagascar, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zimbabwe).

Robert W. Herdt, Adjunct International Professor, Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University

Robert Herdt served for 17 years as Program Director for the Rockefeller Foundation in New York in charge of the Foundation's work on agriculture and most recently as Vice President responsible for the Foundation's budget and for oversight of its agricultural, health and overseas programs. He earlier served as Scientific Advisor to the CGIAR Secretariat at the World Bank in Washington from 1983 to 1986 and for 10 years before that was Economist at the International Rice Research Institute in Los Banos, Philippines.

Monty Jones, Executive Secretary, Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa

Monty Jones is an Agricultural scientist and plant breeder who developed NERICA, the New Rices for Africa, a set of high-productivity rices adapted to West Africa's growing conditions. He was named a co-recipient of the 2004 World Food Prize.He and his team painstakingly crossed varieties of Asian and African rices to find stable and fertile breeds that would combine the yields of Asia's plants and the toughness of Africa's. The rice is now being taken up by farmers across West Africa, boosting food security and incomes. Jones' work has also helped inspire other groups to support an African Green Revolution. He began his career in 1975 with the West Africa Rice Development Association (WARDA) in its Mangrove Swamp Rice Research Project in his home country. He continued to work as a rice breeder and researcher at the international institute for tropical agriculture through the 1980s. In 1991, Dr. Jones was appointed head of the Upland Rice Breeding Program at WARDA. It was in this position in 1994 that he made his exceptional breakthrough by combining Asian and African rice genome to develop the, -��New Rice for Africa-�� (NERICAs) uniquely suited to poor African rice farmers. This breakthrough won him the World Food Prize in 2004.

Rebecca Nelson, Associate Professor, Plant Pathology, Cornell University Cornell University

Rebecca Nelson is an associate professor of Plant Pathology, Plant Breeding and International Agriculture, and serves as Program Director for The McKnight Foundation Collaborative Crop Research Program. Through the CCRP, she supports a portfolio of research projects aimed at improving food security in developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Her research interests include molecular genetics and participatory approaches to disease and crop management. Her current research concerns resistance to diseases of cereal crops (especially maize) of importance to African food security. This work, which is affiliated with Cornell's Institute for Genomic Diversity, is aimed at understanding the molecular diversity of defense response genes and determining the roles defense genes in conditioning quantitative disease resistance. She contributes to courses in international agriculture and plant pathology. She worked at the International Potato Center (CIP) in Lima, Peru from 1996-2001 and at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines from 1988-1996.

Onesmo Ole-MoiYoi, Director of Research and Partnerships, International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology

Professor Onesmo K. ole-MoiYoi joined ICIPE as Director of Research and Partnerships in 2001. His current interests, as a senior visiting scientist, include studies on molecular mechanisms for resistance to tropical diseases, especially malaria. Prior to this, he headed the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Laboratory at the predecessor institute (ILRAD) of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), where he was Leader in the Program on Pathophysiology and Genetics in Nairobi for about 14 years.

He held an assistant professorship and Capps' Scholar position at Harvard Medical School and a visiting professorship at the Harvard School of Public Health. He was elected to the Human Genome Organization (HUGO) in 1991 and has been a member of Steering Committees (Biodiversity and Bioinformatics) of HUGO. He was awarded a DSc (Honoris causa) degree by Soka University (Tokyo) for his contributions to research in molecular aspects of tropical protozoan parasites and higher education in SSA. He is currently a member of the Science Council for the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the International Jury for UNESCO-L'Oreal's Awards for Women in Science.

He has lectured extensively on areas of protozoan parasite molecular biology and control, capacity building in science for development and university education. Current interests in research involve the characterization of human polymorphisms for resistance to malaria, which have been localized to human chromosome 5q and development of predictive models for the control of the desert locust, which science is able to put in place, for the first time.

Onesmo ole-MoiYoi, who was a 1968 graduate of Harvard College, where he was an Aga Khan Scholar, and of Harvard Medical School (1972), is the laureate of a 2003 Kilby International Award for innovations in molecular aspects of research on tropical protozoan parasites and university education. He is also the Chairman of the Kenyatta University Council in Kenya -�� the longest-serving individual in such a position. The Government of Kenya has honoured ole-MoiYoi with an Elder of the Order of the Burning Spear (EBS) for his contributions to university education.

Werner Obermeyer, Deputy to the Executive Director, the WHO, UN Headquarters, New York

Mr. Obermeyer is responsible, as Senior External Relations Officer, for UN reform, inter-governmental processes (General Assembly and ECOSOC) and the WHO's relations with the UN system entities based in New York.

Prior to joining the World Health Organization he served as Deputy Director in the UN Environment Programme Office in New York. Before joining the United Nations he served in the South African Foreign Ministry on various assignments in Africa and South America, most recently as Deputy Permanent Representative in Kenya, in 2000.

Mr. Obermeyer has extensive multilateral experience in negotiations relating to environmental sustainability and governance, dealing with diverse issues from health and the environment, to climate change. He has written widely on these topics and regularly addresses meetings thereon.

Per Pinstrup-Andersen, H.E. Babcock Professor of Food, Nutrition and Public Policy, Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University,

Per Pinstrup-Andersen is also the J. Thomas Clark Professor of Entrepreneurship, and, Professor of International Nutrition and Public Policy, Cornell University His research activities focuses on the impact of various aspects of globalization on poverty, food security, and nutrition.

Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen held the position of Director General of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) from 1992-2002. Prior to this, he was director of the Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program, professor of food economics at Cornell University, and a member of the Technical Advisory Committee to the CGIAR. Before taking up his teaching and research positions at Cornell, Pinstrup-Andersen served as a research fellow and director of the Food Consumption and Nutrition Policy Program at IFPRI, an agricultural economist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Colombia, director of the Agro-Economic Division at the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) in the United States, and an associate professor of the Danish Veterinary and Agricultural University in Copenhagen. He is the recipient of the 2001 World Food Prize for his contribution to the improvement of agricultural research, food policy, and the lives of the poor.

Marie Ruel, Division Director, Food Consumption and Nutrition, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Marie T. Ruel was appointed Division Director of IFPRI's Food Consumption and Nutrition Division in 2004. From 1996 until her current appointment, she served as Senior Research Fellow and Research Fellow in that division. Since joining IFPRI, she led the Multi-Country Program on Challenges to Urban Food and Nutrition and the Global Regional Project on Diet Quality and Diet Changes of the Poor. Prior to IFPRI, she was head of the Nutrition and Health Division at the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama/Pan American Health Organization (INCAP/PAHO) in Guatemala.

Dr. Ruel has worked for more than 20 years on issues related to policies and programs to alleviate poverty and child malnutrition in developing countries. She has published extensively in nutrition and epidemiology journals on topics such as maternal and child nutrition, food based strategies to improve diet quality and micronutrient nutrition, urban livelihoods, food security and nutrition, and the development of indicators of child feeding and care practices. She has served on various international expert committees, such as the National Academy of Sciences, the International Zinc in Nutrition Consultative Group, and the International Micronutrient Advisory Group of Experts established by the World Health Organization.

David Sahn, International Professor of Economics, Director of Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program

David E. Sahn is an International Professor of Economics in the Division of Nutritional Sciences and the Department of Economics. His main academic interest is analyzing the determinants of, and solutions to poverty, food insecurity, malnutrition, and disease in developing countries. In addition to teaching and mentoring of graduate students, he devotes considerable efforts to training and capacity building of research institutions in Africa and working with government officials and international organizations to integrate research findings into policy. Prior to coming to Cornell University, Professor Sahn occupied several positions in different institutions and organizations. For instance, he was an Economist at the World Bank, and prior to that, a visiting researcher at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Paris. He has also worked extensively with several UN agencies such as UNICEF, the UNDP, the FAO, and the WHO in Asia, Africa and transition economies in Eastern Europe.

Dr. Sahn has a long list, numbering over 100, of peer-reviewed books, chapters, and journal articles dealing with issues of poverty, inequality, education, health, and related economic and social policy. This body of literature includes both research focused on the impact of economic policy on household welfare, such as his widely cited books on the impact of economic reforms in Africa, Structural Adjustment Reconsidered (Cambridge University Press) and Economic Reform and the Poor in Africa (Oxford University Press), as well as numerous publications that focus on the production of human capital outcomes, particularly in the areas of health, nutrition and education. This includes recent publications such as, "Changes in HIV/AIDS Knowledge and Testing Behavior in Africa: How Much and for Whom?" in the Journal of Population Economics (2006). He also has considerable experience in managing complex collaborative research and training projects, as well as serving as the director of the Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program and the director of the Strategies and Analysis for Growth and Access (SAGA) research project.

David Skorton, President, Cornell University

On July 1st 2006, David Skorton became the 12th President of Cornell University. Prof. Skorton served previously as president of the University of Iowa from 2003 to 2006. He has been a faculty member there for 26 years. Skorton holds professorial appointments in the Departments of Internal Medicine, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering. He was appointed vice president for research in 1992 and, additionally, interim vice president for external relations in 2000. He served as vice president for research and external relations from March 2002 until he assumed the presidency. As vice president, he oversaw more than 30 administrative units and headed a research and development program that ranks among the nation's top 20 public research universities in obtaining external funding. He also continued his role as a physician, caring for adolescents and adults with inborn heart disease.

Co-founder and co-director of the UI Adolescent and Adult Congenital Heart Disease Clinic at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Skorton has focused his research on congenital heart disease in adolescents and adults, cardiac imaging, and computer image processing. His research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the American Heart Association, and by private industry. He has published numerous articles, reviews, book chapters, and two major texts in the areas of cardiac imaging and image processing. He served in a variety of administrative positions at the University of Iowa, including director of the Cardiovascular Image Processing Laboratory (1982 - 1996), director of the Division of General Internal Medicine (1985 - 1989), and associate chair for clinical programs in the Department of Internal Medicine (1989 - 1992).

Alfonso Torres, Associate Dean of Public Policy, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University

A native of Bogotá, Colombia, Dr. Torres holds a doctor of veterinary medicine degree from the National University of Colombia; a Master of Science degree in veterinary pathology from the University of Nebraska, and a doctorate in medical microbiology, specializing in virology, from the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Prior to his return to Cornell, Dr. Alfonso Torres served from 1999 to 2002 as Deputy Administrator of USDA - APHIS' Veterinary Services. In that capacity he was also the United States' Chief Veterinary Officer and the US delegate to the World Organization for Animal Health - OIE. From 1996 to 1999, Dr. Torres was the Director of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC) on Plum Island, New York, which at the time was administered by the USDA (now a part of the Department of Homeland Security). The PIADC is the largest biocontainment center in the US for the study of highly contagious animal diseases. While at PIADC, Dr. Torres also served as chief of USDA's Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (FADDL) from 1994 to 1996. For 3 years before that time, he was head of the FADDL's Diagnostic Services section. Dr. Torres interests are in the area of foreign and emerging animal diseases, biosecurity, and animal health public policy.

Speciosa Wandira, former Vice-President of the Republic of Uganda Speciosa Wandira was elected Ugandan Vice-President in 1994, the first and only woman in Africa to hold such a position at the time.

Her activity in politics began when she was elected village leader under the National Resistance Movement (NRM). Her involvement at this level encouraged her to be more active politically and she was later elected Women's Representative for the Kampala District in the NRM Council when it was in power. She went on to serve both the youth and women's wings of the Democratic Party. Her position in politics grew higher until she was a member of parliament and then was elected vice president.

Dr. Wandira has put much of her focus onto women's issues. Among her goals are decreasing the high illiteracy rate, promoting social justice, and advocating equality for women and other marginalized groups. Noted for her activism against corruption, she is currently working on creating the National Integrity Movement and has worked to mobilize the media in an effort to give the rural areas of Uganda a better picture of the government and Presidency. She has worked hard to fight poverty by working with farmers in an attempt to modernize agriculture. In 1994, Dr Wandira was appointed Vice-President and Minister of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, a portfolio that she still holds today. Her active campaign for gender, peace and development issues contributed to the creation of the AWCPD, a committee jointly established by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

Derrill Watson, Ph. D. Candidate, Economics Department, Cornell University.

Derrill Watson is a Ph. D. Candidate in the Economics Department of Cornell University, a member of the Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society, and a National Merit Scholar. Originally from Santa Barbara, CA, he received his B.A. in Economics with Honors from Brigham Young University in 2002, graduating magna cum laude. His policy-oriented research in development economics focuses on world hunger and the effectiveness of international summits, attempting to identify whether and where the necessary political will exists to accomplish the goals of the World Food Summit and Millennium Declaration. He also explores the effects of political will on economic growth, how globalization is changing the relationships between income, hunger, and obesity, and the extent to which developing countries' food systems will come to resemble those found in developed nations.

It was the two years he spent as a missionary in the former East Germany that sparked his interest in development economics. He teaches an LDS Institute of Religion discussion class, he has been music director and organist for congregations in New York, California, and Utah, and currently serves as an assistant clerk to his pastor.