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Biographies of expert panel members

Alfonso Gumucio Dagron
Managing Director of the Communication for Social Change Consortium.

Mr Gumucio is a development communication specialist with experience in Africa, Asia, the South Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean. He has worked with UNICEF in Nigeria and Haiti, and as an international consultant for FAO, UNDP, UNESCO and other United Nations agencies. He was the Project Director of Tierramérica, a UNEP/UNDP regional communication platform in Latin America on sustainable development and has served as communication adviser to Conservation International, Washington. Mr Gumucio is familiar with issues of child rights, indigenous populations, arts and culture, human rights, community organization, health and sustainable development. He has had extensive experience working in countries including Bolivia, his home country, Burkina Faso, Bangladesh, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Mozambique, Mexico, Nicaragua and Papua New Guinea. He is the author of various studies on communication and his short essays and articles have been published in more than 100 publications, mainly in Latin America. He has also published several books of poetry and narratives. Mr Gumucio is also a filmmaker, and has directed documentaries on cultural and social issues. Since 1997 he has been involved in the Rockefeller Foundation Communication for Social Change initiative.

Rodney Cooke
Director, Technical Advisory Division, IFAD.

Dr Cooke leads the IFAD division responsible for quality assurance, and the linked learning, networking and knowledge sharing associated with the Fund’s activities (around USD 500million/year). He was the Director of the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), ACP-EU Cotonou Agreement, The Netherlands, from 1995 to 2000. Preceding this, Dr Cooke held various positions in the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID), including as Deputy Director of the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) in charge of the Resource Assessment and Farming Systems Research and Development Programme. He has had short and long-term assignments in Latin America, Africa, India and Southeast Asia.

Djiby Diop
Portfolio Manager, United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS).

Mr Diop has a background in agricultural economics with a special emphasis on economics, financial analysis of development projects and agricultural policy. As Portfolio Manager in the UNOPS Africa II Division, based in Dakar, he is responsible for the management and supervision of a portfolio of investment projects relating to agricultural development, poverty alleviation, the promotion of income-generating activities, and civil and rural engineering in Western Africa. These projects have been funded by IFAD, UNDP and the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC). He also gives occasional support to the UNOPS Africa II Division Information Technology Section.

Germán Escobar
Vice-President, International Farming Systems Research Methodology Network (RIMSIP).

Dr Escobar is an Agricultural Economist (PhD). He is actively involved in agricultural economic development, rural poverty, project and programme evaluation and rural development policy. He has more than 20 years of experience with international organizations, including the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE). Dr Escobar has worked as an international consultant for multilateral and bilateral development agencies. He has published more than 80 publications.

Renald Lafond
Team Leader, Pan Asia Networking Program (PAN), International Development Research Centre (IDRC)

A Canadian engineer with an MSc degree, Mr Lafond is a Senior Program Specialist at IDRC, Canada, as well as Team Leader of the Pan Asia Networking Program Initiative. He has several years of experience in industrial research and was involved in the establishment of an information service for small industries in Quebec. Mr Lafond worked for more than 6 years with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) in Africa and Vienna. He joined the Information Sciences Division of IDRC in 1985, where he has been primarily responsible for the development of an information programme for small industries for developing countries. He has been involved in various information-related activities throughout the world, including in the areas of emerging information technologies and information and telecommunications policy. From 1994, he was involved in the development of PAN. He among those responsible for the administration of IFAD’s ENRAP project.

Shalini Kala
ENRAP Coordinator, International Development Research Centre (IDRC)

Ms Kala has an advanced degree in economics. She has 12 years professional experience in rural development, particularly in the areas of food and agriculture. She has researched on agriculture policy issues at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and implemented USAID-funded agriculture projects. Before joining IDRC, Ms Kala was at the World Food Programme (WFP), where she worked on design, testing and advocacy of innovative approaches for food aid as a tool of development.

Carl Greenidge
Director, Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) , ACP-EU Cotonou Agreement, The Netherlands

Mr Greenidge is the former Secretary General ad interim and Deputy Secretary General of the ACP Group of States. An economist by training, he has worked with the Government of Guyana in a variety of technical capacities, including as Secretary to the State Planning Board. In addition to a career in the international arena and in the public policy sphere, Mr Greenidge has worked in academia, including at the University of London. His teaching and research interests include agricultural and resource economics, public policy and public finance. He has undertaken work on Caribbean fisheries, the political economy of agricultural modernisation, and on the impact of technological innovations on farming systems and incomes using mathematical optimisation techniques. Mr Greenidge is also the author of a book and two monographs, as well as many referenced articles on economics and agricultural economics.

Chin Saik Yoon
Chief Editor of the Digital Review of Asia Pacific, and Publisher and Managing Director of Southbound.

Mr Chin has served on the editorial board of and contributed to the World Information and Communication Report. He is the publisher and managing director of Southbound, a publishing house specializing in development information and communication titles. He is an active practitioner of participatory development communication and has worked extensively in Asian. He is a member of the Isang Bagsak Network, which is developing methodologies in participatory development communication in Africa, Asia and Egypt.

Anton Mangstl
Director, Library and Documentation Systems Division, Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Dr Mangstl is a specialist in agronomy and information management. Prior to joining FAO in 1996, he was Director of the Centre for Agricultural Documentation and Information (ZADI) Bonn, Germany. Earlier, he was Deputy to the Head of the Working Group on Crop Production and Informatics, Center for Life and Food Sciences in Agriculture, Freising-Weihenstephan (Germany).

Dylan Winder
Rural Livelihoods Adviser, Information Division, United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID).

DFID’s Information and Communication for Development (ICD) Team seeks to better understand the pro-poor role of information and communications in international development, by analysing policy processes as well as practice. The team focuses its work in rural areas and is working with FAO and the World Bank to develop an evidence-based approach to ICD for rural livelihoods. Mr Winder is also Head of DFID’s research communications team, which works to improve the impact and uptake of pro-poor research in developing countries and internationally. He was a researcher in integrated pest management systems with the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) for 5 years. He also worked at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Philippines. Since joining DFID in 1995 as Communications Manager for the Rural Livelihoods Department, Mr Winder has represented DFID internationally in this field and worked in Africa, Asia and the former Soviet Republic.

Michael Furminger
CISCO Education Specialist, CISCO Systems.

A technical educator who was trained as a physicist and an electronics engineer, Mr Furminger has taught in several UK Universities (Sheffield Hallam, Leicester de Montfort, Open University) focusing on distance learning. He also has experience in the high school and the further education sectors. He was recently certified by Cisco as a networking engineer. Mr Furminger’s commercial experience includes stints as Director of a small business incubator and as Managing Director of Euronet Associates Ltd. He has applied his knowledge of ICTs in public and private sector projects, including network design in universities. He has worked as an ITU advisor in Egypt and Surinam. In his current role at Cisco, Mr Furminger is responsible for field operations, teaching and learning quality of the Cisco Networking Academy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

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