Silvia Sperandini is the Gender, Targeting and Social Inclusion Specialist for the Gender Team at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). She oversees the activities of the Desk in this domain and works to build knowledge about IFAD’s objectives and approaches on social targeting, gender equality and women’s empowerment; and their implementation through adequate capacity building, peer-support and knowledge sharing strategies.

Before her fifteen years with IFAD, Sperandini worked for other international organizations (like UNOPS-Dominican Republic and WFP-HQ) and Italian NGOs where she managed operations, partnership building and other project-related activities.

Her academic background is in Political Science and International Affairs with a M.Sc. in International Co-Operation and Development Projects. She is an Italian expert of Development Cooperation and a lead-expert on the Communities of Practice approach. She believes that the capitalization of know-how, identification of up-scalable models/innovations, peer support and targeted dissemination of evidence-based good practices are key to improve efficiency, quality and impact of development operations. She is part of the IFAD Help Fund Core Group where she acts as Projects Focal Point and support other activities on a voluntary basis.