SESSION 6 AGENDA & SPEAKERS

Dr. Ann Trevenen-Jones is the Lead of the Food Systems Governance programme at The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). In the field of food systems policy and governance, she advocates for better, leveraging of multi-level government mandates and tools, local data and multi-stakeholder engagement to realise the vision of contextual and just food systems transformations. Where such transformations facilitate the accelerated, inclusive and sustainable advancement of prosperous livelihoods and diverse, affordable, safe, and healthy diets for all – especially those most vulnerable to malnutrition in all it’s forms. Her work spans global advocacy, partnerships, research and programmatic delivery, with a particular focus on local communities, informal markets, and rural-urban food systems, in Africa and South-East Asia. She is the GAIN representative, and co-lead with FAO, of the Urban Food Systems Working Group and the establishment of the UNFSS Coalition on Inclusive and Sustainable Urban Food Systems.

Ms Sylvia Lopez-Ekra brings 20 years of experience in development, gender, and migration work to the United Nations System. Sylvia first joined the International Organization for Migration (IOM) at its Headquarters in Geneva in 2002 as a project officer working on an initiative striving to mobilise the African diaspora to benefit African development and prosperity. She later led the organization’s gender coordination work for many years, during which she steered the agency’s efforts on gender mainstreaming and protection from sexual exploitation and abuse.  In 2014, she was posted in Accra as the Chief of Mission and Country Representative for the IOM offices in Ghana, Benin and Togo. She also served as Ghana's United Nations Resident Coordinator ad interim from December 2018 to May 2020. She was later appointed UN Resident Coordinator in Morocco by the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, a role she occupied from August 2020 to July 2022. Ms Ekra is a Cote d’Ivoire and France binational and a trained lawyer. She holds a master’s degree in International Administration, with honours, from the Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris, France. 

James Lomax is currently food systems and agriculture adviser in UNEP’s ecosystems division having recently been a part time secondee to the Secretariat of the UN Food Systems Summit. James has been leading efforts on sustainable food systems and agriculture at UNEP since 2009. He has pioneered the idea of systems thinking in the food and agriculture sector where nutrition, waste, environmental externalities and livelihoods must be considered if a shift to more sustainable food systems is to be realized. Currently, James is focusing on sustainable agriculture and livestock systems , repurposing farmer fiscal support, regenerative and net-positive agriculture and coordinating UNEP’s internal work on food systems and agriculture. A tropical agriculturalist by training (MSc Reading University), before joining UNEP James had a varied career in the private sector in farming, small holder development, food processing and export in East Africa and Europe. 

Elise H. Golan is the Director for Sustainable Development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  In this role, she provides leadership in planning, coordinating, and analyzing the Department's various policies, programs and activities that impact and relate to sustainable agricultural, natural resource, and community development including food security.

Prior to this position, Dr. Golan served as the Associate Director of the Food Economics Division at the Economic Research Service, USDA. She received her Ph.D. in agricultural economics from the University of California at Berkeley and completed a post-doctorate fellowship focusing on environmental economics at the University of Haifa, Israel.  Before joining USDA, Dr. Golan did consulting work for, among others, the World Bank, the International Labour Organization, and the California Department of Finance.  She served as a senior staff economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1998-99.

Dr. Golan’s research has spanned a wide range of sustainability issues, including land tenure and sustainable land management in the Sahel and West Africa; regional and U.S. food-system modeling; food labeling and market development; food access, affordability, and security; and the distributional consequences of food policy.

Dr. Nancy Aburto is the Deputy Director of the Food and Nutrition Division of the FAO where she supports the strategic planning, development and management of the broad portfolio of FAO’s work in nutrition.  With nearly 20 years of experience working globally in the field of nutrition, her expertise spans from acute undernutrition to overweight/obesity and the double burden of malnutrition; and from nutrition science research to nutritional epidemiology to large scale programming and policy.   

Prior to joining FAO, Dr. Aburto worked at the UN World Food Programme, World Health Organization, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Mexican National Institute of Public Health.  Dr. Aburto, a United States national, received a PhD in Nutrition and Health Sciences from Emory University,   Master’s Degree from the University of Georgia, and a Bachelor’s Degree from Duke University. 

Oliver Oliveros is the Coordinator of the Agroecology Coalition and heads the Coalition Secretariat. He was previously interim Executive Director of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, a coalition of foundations working to leverage their resources to help shift food systems towards greater sustainability, security, and equity.  He also worked for the UN Food Systems Summit Secretariat as the Champions Network Engagement Lead, stewarding a global network of more than 100 food systems experts to maximize the value of their contribution to the Summit. Oliver previously worked as the Deputy Director at Agropolis Fondation; as the Global Coordinator of the DURAS Project which focused on scientific and civil society communities research collaboration; and as Partnership Officer at the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) Secretariat in FAO in Rome. Before coming to Europe in 1999, he served at the Ministry of Socio-economic Planning in the Philippines where he was involved in project evaluation and investment programming in the agriculture and rural development sector as well as in the formulation of the country’s Agenda 21 and Medium-Term Development Plan.  

Anthony Wenndt is the Technical Officer for Reaching the Very Poor at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). Based in Washington, DC, USA, Anthony supports GAIN’s efforts to improve the diets of the very poorest and most marginalized communities. As the programme lead for social protection, Anthony manages the GAIN’s multi-country portfolio of nutrition-sensitive social protection interventions. His background is in community-based participatory research and context-sensitive food system interventions in smallholder communities, with particular emphasis on mitigating dietary mycotoxin exposure among the rural poor. 

Ms Nicole de Paula, PhD, is the Senior SDGs Expert at the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub, leading the work on Thought Leadership and science-policy interface. She is the inaugural Klaus Töpfer Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies for Sustainability in Potsdam, Germany, and founder of Women Leaders for Planetary Health. In 2021, she published the book “Breaking the Silos for Planetary Health: A Roadmap for a Resilient Post-Pandemic World”. She is also an advisor to the World Health Organization- South-East Asia Regional Expert Group on Environment Determinants of Health and Climate Change and one of the Scientific Commissioners of The Lancet Pathfinder Commission on decabornization. 

Director of WFP’s School Feeding Division – Lead of the School Meals Coalition Secretariat. During her 17 years of experience with WFP, Carmen Burbano de Lara has focused on supporting governments to improve the nutrition, education and wellbeing of children. Specifically, she is interested in tackling the interrelated issues of malnutrition, poor health and learning and in strengthening the national safety net systems designed to address these issues. She has held management positions in Peru, Rome, Colombia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and Tanzania; and provided temporary support to earthquake relief efforts in Haiti and Nepal. Ms. Burbano de Lara is WFP’s world expert in school feeding. In this capacity, she has advised the governments of China, Colombia and Kenya, Ghana, among others, often in partnership with the World Bank. She is the co-author of the most influential publications on school feeding over the last ten years including “Re-imagining school feeding: a human capital investment in health, education, social protection and agriculture” (2018); “The School Feeding Sourcebook” (2016); and “Rethinking School Feeding” (2009), published by the World Bank. She has authored WFP’s flagship publication “The State of School Feeding Worldwide” (2013) and conceived and drafted WFP’s Global School Feeding Policy (2013). Prior to assuming her current position in July 2018, she was WFP’s Representative and Country Director in Peru. She has also worked in UNDP’s Executive Office. Carmen is Ecuadorian and holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Harvard University and Bachelor in Latin-American Studies and Comparative Literature from New York University.

Nadine Gbossa started her career with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva, and the United Nations Office for Project Services in Abidjan and New York. From 2004, she has held senior management positions with the United Nations Development Programme in Niger and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Italy. As Country Director, Representative and Regional head for IFAD, Ms Gbossa worked in several African countries with vulnerable communities, governments, development partners and the private sector for inclusive growth. From 2016 to 2018, Ms. Gbossa headed the Global Partnerships and Policies Division in the Development Co-operation Directorate of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris leading the OECD’s development cooperation work. In August 2018, was appointed as Representative for IFAD in Nigeria, managing the largest country programme in the region. Subsequently, IFAD appointed her as Director for the West and Central Africa region leading one of IFAD’s largest investment divisions. In 2021, Nadine was appointed as Director for Food Systems Coordination in IFAD and she is the Chief of the Means of Implementation for the UN Food System Coordination Hub.