Bio

What’s your role at AICCRA and the journey that led you here?   

As a Science Officer in the Program Management Unit, I work closely with the Program Director and cross-functional teams and clusters to support strategic program management, including coordinating annual work plans and reports across 12 clusters. Together with the Director, I support the governance and coordination activities, including planning and executing Independent Steering Committee, as well as Program Management Committee and Core Team meetings, ensuring strategic alignment and timely responses to donor requests. Additionally, I support Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Impact Assessments (MELIA) processes to strengthen program monitoring and ensuring evidence-based decision-making. Furthermore, I also work with Theme 4 (Climate Information Services) on advancing climate information services for agriculture, particularly in the area of developing tailored agro-advisories and national frameworks for climate services.

With my educational background in Development Management and Governance (majoring in Program Management), I have extensive experience managing regional projects on food security, climate change adaptation, climate information, and agro-advisory services. Notably, from 2018 to 2023, I managed a €7.9M project in Southeast Asia that reached over 200,000 farmers with tailored climate information to aid decision-making and enhance resilience. When I first joined the CGIAR about 15 years ago, I asked myself how CGIAR science and innovations could effectively reach and benefit farmers. AICCRA answers that question, translating research into tangible impacts for smallholder farmers and aligning deeply with my passion and expertise in scaling innovations, fostering partnerships, and ensuring program alignment with farmer needs.

Tell us why you think AICCRA can help deliver a climate-smart future for Africa?   

AICCRA is a transformative initiative that addresses a long-standing challenge faced by the CGIAR: how to bridge the gap between research innovations and meaningful impact for smallholder farmers.

By focusing on partnerships with relevant development institutions and working with farmers, AICCRA builds their capacities to connect research to tangible outcomes and eventual development impacts. Collaborating with large-scale programs like Food System Resilience Progams (FSRPs), which already have systems in place for scaling, AICCRA demonstrates how science can achieve real impact at scale. The program’s core premise—strengthening institutions with the mandate and ability to scale innovations both upwards (policy influence) and outwards (expanding reach)—is a model for delivering a climate-smart future for Africa.