Oscar A. Garcia is the Director of the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD. Before joining IFAD, Oscar served as head of the advisory services at UNEP - Technology, Industry and Economics Division, Paris, providing guidance to the Partnership for Action on Green Economy. With more than 20 years in development cooperation, Oscar was senior evaluation advisor, at UNDP Evaluation Office in New York, overseeing programmatic and thematic evaluations. He was Managing Director of Proactiva, a consulting firm specialized in results-based management and development evaluation, and Director General for Trade Policies at the Bolivian Ministry of Economic Development. Oscar is the Vice-Chair of the United Nations Evaluation Group, and he was the Chair of the Evaluation Cooperation Group of multilateral development banks in 2017.

Eko Putro Sandjojo, BSEE., M.BA, is the Minister of Village, Development of Disadvantaged Region, and Transmigration (Kementerian Desa, Pembangunan Daerah Tertinggal, dan Transmigrasi) of Indonesia at the Work Cabinet who has been serving since July 27, 2016. H.E. Sandjojo holds a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Kentucky, Lexington in 1991 and a Master of Business Administration from the Indonesian Institute for Management Development (IPMI), Jakarta in 1993. In 2015, he served as Director of PT Sierad Produce Tbk after serving as deputy Director since 2009. He has also served as Independent Commissioner of PT Central Proteina Prima, Tbk.. H.E. Sandjojo then moved to Humpuss in 2007 as Managing Director, before returning to PT Sierad Produce, Tbk. as President Director in 2009. H.E. Sandjojo is a firm believer of the concept of leadership where a leader cannot directly take over the work of his men just because the results are not as expected. H.E. Sandjojo believes that leader must be able to prepare his men to perform perfection in their work.

Joanne Levitan is a Communication Officer at IFAD and has been working in the field of journalism and communications for twenty years. After completing a Bachelor of Journalism at Rhodes University, South Africa, she worked as a journalist and presenter in news and current affairs television. She later set up a television production company producing television shows and documentaries covering South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy. She continued working in television programming in Australia, focusing on stories about Aboriginal health issues. In 2010, she was selected for a Peace Fellowship at The Rotary Peace Center at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. Since 2011, she has been working at IFAD where she leads on video production and communication outreach for key global events.

Ricardo is the Executive Director of Oxfam Mexico since August 2018. Prior to that he was head of research at Oxfam Great Britain where he directed a high-profile investigation team to support the global campaigns and programs of Oxfam. Among others he directed the research on economic inequality which is widely referred to in both academic and political circles. Before joining Oxfam Ricardo worked in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) where he was lead author of the African Human Development Report and co-authored various global reports. He has also worked in the World Bank where he was co-author on climate change and development for the World Development Report 2010. He has been part of the Ministry of Social Development in Mexico and worked for the Inter-American Development Bank. Ricardo has conducted research on topics of food security, climate change, social security and social policies, regional development, poverty and inequality. He graduated from the Center for Economic Research and Training (CIDE) in Mexico and received a Master’s Degree from the University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona.

For over 10 years, Violet Shivutse has worked as community health worker and home-based caregiver in the Shibuye sub-region of the Shinyalu constituency, Kenya. She provides direct care and support to hundreds of HIV-positive community members, including orphans, elderly and the critically ill. Ms Shivutse is the Founder and Coordinator of Shibuye Community Health Workers and a regional watchdog group, that works with local authorities to enforce land and inheritance rights of women and orphans. She works to build community resilience and combat climate change, and negotiates with authorities for gender-responsive policy. She trains women and local authorities in Local-to-Local dialogues to ensure equitable implementation of development policies. Violet has represented the Huairou Commission in policy fora all over the world, continuously pushing for rural and grassroots women’s inclusion at higher levels of dialogue. She is a grassroots representative on UN Women’s Global Civil Society Advisory Board.

Maximo Torero is the World Bank Group Executive Director for Argentina, Bolivia, Chile Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay since November 2016. Prior to joining the Bank, Dr Torero led the Division of the Markets, Trade, and Institutions at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). His major research work lies mostly in analyzing poverty, inequality, importance of geography and assets (private or public) in explaining poverty, and in policies oriented towards poverty alleviation based on the role played by infrastructure, institutions, and on how technological breakthroughs (or discontinuities) can improve the welfare of households and small farmers. His experience encompasses Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. Dr Torero received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), held a postdoctoral fellow position at the UCLA Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR), and is a professor on leave at the Universidad del Pacífico and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at University of Bonn, Germany. He has won the World Award for Outstanding Research on Development given by the Global Development Network (GDN) twice.

Pablo Fajnzylber is Manager of the Economic Management and Country Programs of the Independent Evaluation Group at the World Bank. In previous assignments at the World Bank, he has been Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa at the Poverty and Equity Global Practice, and Lead Economist for Brazil. Mr. Fajnzylber holds a PhD in economics from Michigan State University. He has published extensively on a variety of development topics, including on Economic Growth, Labor Demand and Informality, Workers’ Remittances, the Economic Causes of Violent Crime, and the Development Implications of Climate Change. In addition to authoring multiple World Bank reports on these topics, his work has been published in various professional journals, including the Journal of Development Economics, Journal of International Economics, Journal of Law and Economics, European Economic Review, World Development, Journal of Development Studies, and the World Bank Economic Review among others.

Shi Li is Professor of Economics and Acting Director of China Institute for Income Distribution at Beijing Normal University and a Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow at UNU-WIDER. Professor Li’s research focuses on China’s poverty, inequality, labour market and social protection using household survey data. He has written extensively on these topics, having published a wide range of journal articles, book chapters, and books. He has been a principal coordinator of China Household Income Project (CHIP) surveys since 1988. He is member of the Advisory Committee of Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, member of the Advisory Committee of Ministry of Agriculture, and member of Advisory Committee of Poverty Alleviation Office of State Council, China. He was a professor and senior research fellow at the Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences from 1996 to 2005.

Hazel Malapit is a senior research coordinator at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). She coordinates research, training and technical assistance on the implementation of the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), including refinement and adaptations of the tools for project-level use, and for capturing empowerment across the value chain. She manages and coordinates the integration of gender into the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), and conducts research on gender, women’s empowerment, agriculture, health and nutrition issues. She is co-PI for the Gender, Agriculture & Assets Program (GAAP) (Phase 2), and is a member of the Advisory Committee for the CGIAR Collaborative Platform for Gender Research.

Andrea Biswas Tortajada has worked with academia, think thanks, governments, non-governmental organizations, and the United Nations Development Programme in fostering individual and collective innovation to further sustainability, human rights, and enhance people's dignity. Since she joined Nestlé in 2015, she has focused on advancing the role and contributions of private companies to the Sustainable Development Goals, gender equality, youth empowerment, and responsible value chains. Over the last couple of years, she has been shaping Nestlé’s Global Initiative for YOUth, an ambitious effort to help create economic opportunities for 10 million young people by 2030!

Unni Karunakara is President of Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders Holland and Senior Fellow/ Assistant Professor at Yale University. He was International President of Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders from 2010-2013. He has been a humanitarian worker and a public health professional for more than two decades, with extensive experience in the delivery of health care to populations affected by conflict, disasters, epidemics, and neglect in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. He was Medical Director of the MSF’s Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines (2005-2007) and co-founded VIVO, an organisation that works toward overcoming and preventing traumatic stress and its consequences. Karunakara serves on the Board of Directors of Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) India and is a Visiting Professor at Manipal University.

Cecilia is an Economist at the Research Department of the French Development Agency (AFD). She is in charge of research projects on social protection and works on issues related to inequality, poverty and migration. Prior to joining the AFD in April 2018, Cecilia collaborated on different research projects with the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization on topics such as: poverty, social and labour market conditions (with a focus on Southeast Asia), internal and international migration. Her current research focuses on evaluations of social protection programs, forms of inequalities and on social cohesion. Cecilia holds a PhD in labour and development economics from the University of Sussex.

Vidya Diwakar is a Senior Research Officer in the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network at ODI. She is a mixed-methods researcher and policy analyst specializing in gender-disaggregated research on poverty dynamics, conflict, and education. She focuses predominantly on human capital development as a means of sustaining escapes from poverty, and the role of subnational conflict in perpetuating poverty traps. Her fieldwork centers on South Asia, while her wider research portfolio also covers the MENA region and sub-Saharan Africa. She holds an MPhil in Economics from the University of Cambridge.

Birte Snilstveit is a Senior Evaluation Specialist at 3ie with 10 years’ experience working on policy research and evidence uptake. She leads the design and delivery of policy-relevant systematic reviews and evidence gap maps (EGMs), including being a Team Leader of 3ie’s flagship systematic review on what works to improve learning outcomes in in low- and middle income countries. She also provides quality assurance and capacity building to teams conducting systematic reviews and EGMs, including as an editor for the Campbell Collaboration. A key focus of her work is developing and applying research methods that are both rigorous, relevant and timely, and to this end she spearheaded the development of 3ie’s Evidence Gap Map (EGM) methodology and led work on mixed-methods, theory based systematic reviews. Her current focus is on the use of technology for rapid and ‘living’ systematic reviews. Her substantive interests spans a number of topics, including education and climate change in particular.

Diana Alarcón was the Chief of the Development Strategy and Policy Unit at the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Development until retirement in September 2017. From this position, she led the writing team for the World Economic and Social Survey in the last few years. From 2011, she coordinated the work of the United Nations Task Team for the Post 2015 Development Agenda that contributed with analytical inputs to the definition of the Agenda for Sustainable Development. Diana has a PhD in Economics from the University of California, Riverside and has published on issues related to poverty, inequality, employment, and sustainable development.

Bidisha is an Evaluation Specialist at the International Initiative of Impact Evaluation (3ie), stationed in New Delhi, India. She leads on 3ie’s impact evaluation grants in the field of social protection and agricultural risk mitigation. Bidisha received my PhD in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics and has been working for 3ie since 2015.

Lisandro Martin is the Acting Director of the Operational Policy and Results Division (OPR) and of the Sustainable Production, Markets and Institutions Division (PMI). He heads the Fund's self-evaluation functions, including efforts to advance results-based management in country strategies and operations. He oversees operational policies and procedures, as well as systems to track operational performance and compliance. He works across departments to advance the Fund's transparency agenda and to implement the Performance-based Allocation System for IFAD financing. In this capacity, Mr Martin chaired the Multilateral Development Bank's Working Group on Managing for Development Results, and is a member of the Advisory Committee on the Monitoring Framework of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation. Before joining IFAD in 2015, he held several positions at the World Bank, both in HQ and in the field, the latest one being Senior Operations Officer in the Department of Openness, Effectiveness and Results. Among other accomplishments in this role, he led the creation of the World Bank Group's Results Measurement and Evidence Stream. Other jobs in the World Bank include efforts to advance citizen engagement, transparency, and results-based management in Bangladesh, Nepal, Kenya, Albania, and the Southern Cone of Latin America. He also worked at the African Development Bank where he initially led good governance operations in Southern Africa before taking various roles at the Quality Assurance and Results Department. In this last job, he created the first-ever results measurement framework for the African Development Bank Group. Prior shorter term assignments include UNESCO, UNESCAP, and the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Martin holds a Masters in Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. He also holds a Bachelor Degree with Honors from Universidad del Salvador, Argentina and a Certificate in Conflict Studies from Uppsala University in Sweden.

Federica Carfagna is a statistician and currently acting Director of the Research and Development department of the African Risk Capacity (ARC). She has been with ARC since its inception in 2009 and is one of the main authors of the methodology underlying the Africa RiskView software, the technical engine of ARC, to model the impact of drought on vulnerable populations and create the country-specific risk profiles as a basis for ARC insurance. Ms Carfagna hold a Master’s Degree in statistics from the University of Rome La Sapienza and spent one year in an exchange program at the Cass Business School in London. Before joining ARC, she worked as a statistician for the World Food Programme, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs in New York and the Rome City Hall.

Since 2000, professor Cornia has been teaching development economics at the University of Florence. Prior to that, he has worked as Director of the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER, Helsinki), Director of the economic research programme at IRC (Florence), chief economist of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF, New York) and research economist for UNCTAD and UNECA (Geneva). Mr Cornia held visiting professorships at the Universities of Pavia, Bologna-Buenos-Aires, Clermont Ferrand, Cambridge and Helsinki. In 2010, he was visiting fellow at Nuffield College (Oxford). Cornia has published/edited 16 books on development and transitional issues, some 40 chapters in books edited by other authors, 70 journal articles and as many working papers in classified series. His main research interest are poverty, inequality, macroeconomics, agriculture and land reform, transitional economics, structural change and social policies. Cornia holds two master degrees: Economics and Statistics, both from the University of Bologna. He was the first president of the Italian Development Economics Association, and is a member of the European Development Research Network (EUDN) and of the UN Committee for Development Policies (CDP).

Dr Chitra Deshpande is currently Senior Evaluation Officer in the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD. With over twenty years of experience spanning both the private and public sectors, she is a results-based management expert with a strong background in agriculture, rural development and gender. At IFAD, she has served as the Special Adviser to the Vice-President, Portfolio Adviser, Operational Policy Economist in Asia, and Quality Assurance Programme Manager at IFAD as well as Strategy and Planning Officer at FAO. As a gender and development expert, she has worked for FAO, the World Bank and WFP - most notably on the Gender in Agriculture Sourcebook. As a management consultant at Booz-Allen & Hamilton, she developed growth and efficiency strategies for multinational companies. Dr Deshpande received her DPhil in Geography and MPhil in Development Studies from Oxford University and M.A. in Food Research and B.A. in History from Stanford University.

Benjamin Davis is Leader of the Strategic Programme to Reduce Rural Poverty at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). He has extensive experience in social protection, social policies and agricultural economics. He has previously served as Deputy Director of the Agricultural Development Economics Division at FAO and he was team leader of the From Production to Protection (PtoP) project. He has also worked as Social Policy Advisor for the UNICEF Regional Office in Eastern and Southern Africa and as a Research and Post-Doctoral Fellow at IFPRI. Benjamin Davis holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics and a Master’s in Public Policy from UC Berkeley.

Dr Piero Conforti is the Deputy Director ad interim of the Statistics Division at the FAO. He is an agricultural economist with more than 25 years of experience in food security, undernourishment and social statistics, capacity development (Sahel, Eastern Africa), rural livelihoods, monitoring of indicators for the SDGs, damages and loss from natural and man-made disasters. Since 2003, he has been working for the FAO starting in the Trade and Markets Division as economist working on long-term projections on food and agricultural markets. Prior, Dr Conforti worked as a researcher for the Italian National Institute of Agricultural Economics and for the Italian Institute of Nutrition. Dr Conforti has a PhD in Agricultural Economics from the University of Siena, a Master of Science in Agricultural Economics from Oxford University and the University of Naples "Federico II", where he also was awarded his first degree (Laurea) in Agriculture.

Espen Beer Prydz is an Economist working on measurement of poverty and inequality with the World Bank’s Development Data Group, based at the Center for Development Data in Rome. He has previously worked with the World Bank in Cambodia, South Sudan and Indonesia on poverty, social protection and economic policy. Prior to joining the World Bank, he did research on poverty, labor markets and gender with the OECD Development Centre and The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. Espen is a Norwegian national and holds an MPA in International Development (MPA/ID) from Harvard University and a B.Sc. from the London School of Economics.

Natalia Winder Rossi is a senior social protection specialist with policy and programmatic experience in Latin America and Eastern and Southern Africa. Currently, she leads the Global Social Protection team in FAO, Rome, while acting as senior advisor for the Rural Poverty and Resilience Strategic Programmes. She is leading FAO’s work in strengthening policy and programmatic linkages between social protection, productive inclusion, nutrition and resilience. Prior to joining FAO, she was the Senior Social Protection Specialist (Social Protection) at UNICEF’s Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa, and Social Protection Officer in UNICEF-Headquarters in New York.Ms. Winder also as co-authored UNICEF’s Social Protection Strategic Framework. Prior to joining UNICEF, Ms. Winder worked at the Inter-American Development Bank. Natalia holds a Master’s of Science degree in Foreign Servicefrom Georgetown University, a Master’s of Science in Social Policy Research from London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a BA degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

Marielle Pepin-Lehalleur is a French and Mexican anthropologist, retired researcher of CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), France. She studied the economy , family organization and social commitments of peasant households in different settings in Mexico, from indian villages tied to market-place merchants to highly tecnicized regions where they rub big farmers, technical support officers, banks and agro-industry ; political relationships between those different kind of actors ; public policies aimed at infrastructure, production or reducing poverty ; organization and meanings of elections at a local basis ; migration and its effects, in the sending villages and in the learning of new modes of living for the migrants in the city or in the USA. As an anthropologist, she always grounds her different topics on field work, in the countryside or in the city of Mexico and surroundings.

Maria Teresa Gutierrez is an ILO official, works as technical specialist for the Employment Intensive Investment Programme in Geneva, being responsible of the Americas Region. She is also gender focal point and promotes Rights-based approach and community-based methodologies for infrastructure development in support, mainly, of rural economy. Her professional formation is on social Anthropology and subsequent post graduate specialization in Rural Development, Gender and Human Development, having been linked to the Academy for more than two decades. Her work in the water and sanitation sector promotes job creation and skills development and women empowerment mainly at community level where applies gender and intercultural approaches, community and local resource based methodologies. She is confident with these approaches of the ILO/EIIP to promote the water-jobs relationship, where coordinated policies and investments are key to promote sustainable development. Her current work is putting more emphasis on developing tools to enhance sustainable water management; accessibility planning for water infrastructure to improve living standards and working conditions for the creation of more decent jobs and better social inclusion.

Rita Kimani, co-founder of FarmDrive is a young ambitious changemaker. Her life’s work focuses on leveraging technology to enable smallholder farmers in Africa achieve self-sustenance. She holds a First Class Honours BSc in Computer Science from the University of Nairobi and has proven expertise in conceptualising and designing solutions for emerging economies and fostering scalable innovations. Growing up in a rural farming community in Kenya, Rita experienced firsthand the frustration farming communities faced as they struggled to support their families through agriculture. Despite these challenges, sustainable agriculture is the best tool to significantly reduce global poverty and promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth while reducing inequalities. Rita resolved to use both her personal and academic experiences to build solutions that would equip farming communities with the resources they needed to thrive in their farming enterprises. She co-founded FarmDrive, a Kenyan-based social enterprise that connects unbanked and underserved smallholder farmers to credit, while helping financial institutions cost effectively increase their agricultural loan portfolios. Rita is passionate about engaging the youth who are key to achieve make up over 50 per cent of Africa’s population and with the energy, innovation and entrepreneurial flair that they have, are a key to achieving the vital Sustainable Development Goals. In addition to her efforts through FarmDrive, Rita has been at the forefront of bringing the youth perspective in building and executing programmes that support youth to be the force behind ending poverty, hunger, inequalities and ensuring decent jobs for all.

Pontian Muhwezi, is Country Programme Officer for IFAD, in Uganda, since April 2006. Immediately prior to this appointment, he was for 4 years, a Decentralisation and Rural Development Adviser for the Irish Embassy/Irish Aid in Uganda, where he assisted the Rural Development and Governance Attaché, to design and manage rural development programs, funded by the Irish Government singularly or co-financed with other donors, plus representation in donor and sector working groups on decentralisation, agriculture and private sector development. He previously worked with Government of Uganda first as a District Community Development Officer for Bushenyi District Local Government and later as a Senior Research Officer in Ministry of Local Government. He started his career in 1993 as a Research Assistant and later as Research, Planning and Documentation Officer with URDT, a local NGO. He holds an MBA (Finance), MA Development Studies (Agricultural and Rural Development) and a BA (Social Sciences).

Ariane Genthon is a Child labour expert in the Decent Rural Employment team of FAO. Ariane is a French national joined FAO in 2013 and since then, she has been travelling extensively to Africa and Middle East in the framework of her technical support to FAO decentralized offices. Prior to joining FAO, she worked for the International Labour Organization where her focus was on child labour, forced labour and migration/trafficking. She holds a Master’s degree in Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.

Kanyinke Sena is the Director, Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee (www.ipacc.org.za) and a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Egerton University in Kenya. He is also a member of the African Commission Working Group on Indigenous Populations. Prior, he served as member and Chairperson of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. He has also served as Kenya Advocacy Officer for Minority Rights Group International, a member of the Indigenous Advisory Group of Conservational International among many others. Kanyinke holds a Doctorate in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy from the University of Arizona, USA.

Samantha Custer leads AidData’s efforts to analyze official finance investments worldwide, conduct performance assessments of the development cooperation activities of governments and international organizations, and field surveys to learn from the experiences of decision-makers regarding the impact of external money and ideas on domestic policy reforms. She manages AidData’s 13-person Policy Analysis Unit and directs research partnerships with private foundations, bilateral aid agencies, and multilateral development banks. Samantha’s experience cuts across traditional boundaries between academia, policy, and practice. She has co-authored World Bank studies on open data and citizen feedback, advised governments and international organizations on language and education policy with SIL International, and coordinated the advocacy efforts of the Asia Multilingual Education Working Group for UNESCO. Samantha also designed and taught a course on US National Security with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Samantha holds masters degrees in Foreign Service and Public Policy from Georgetown University.

Fay Fay Choo has 23 years of experience in strategic sourcing and agricultural value chains development in Asia. In the past seven years, she’s led the cocoa sustainability development for Mars Inc in Asia that aims to transform the lives of cocoa farming families and communities towards sustainable and resilient livelihoods as part of Mars Inc’s Sustainable in A Generation plan.

Presently, associated with Ekta Parishad as Campaign Coordinator for Homeless and Landless Rights in Northeast Region of India. Guest Lecturer in Department of Social Work, Ideal Teacher’s Training Academy, Manipur, India. Worked as National Program Coordinator in MJVS, Madhya Pradesh, India, for Alternative / Solidarity Tourism in Partnership with TAMADI, France. Worked as State Targeted Intervention Mentoring Officer in Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA), Manipur. Worked as a Manager in Child Rights And You (CRY), an Indian Funding Agency, in Regional Office Kolkata. Worked as Project Cum Research Coordinators in Educated Self-Employed Women’s Social Service Association and Institute of Social Work and Research in Manipur. Did Advocacy Internship Program in National Centre for Advocacy Studies, Pune, India. Worked as Project Officer in Nav-Drushtri, Mumbai. Completed Post Graduated Degree in Social Work, specialised in Urban and Rural Community Development under Pune University, India.