Global Perspectives Studies

Meet the team

Lorenzo Giovanni Bellù

Team leader, Senior Economist
FAO Global Perspectives Studies Team
At FAO since: 2000

Key areas of expertise and work

  • Global and country-level development processes and related implications for food and agriculture. Socio-economic and environmental impact assessment of policies; policy impact analysis by means of Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) and other quantitative analysis tools.
  • Thematic areas of interest comprise the analysis of cross-country interdependencies and contributions and limits of agricultural development and agricultural policies for poverty reduction and food security in the changing global environment.

Areas of work include 

  • Scenario-building for assessments long-term development patterns, with a focus on cross-country interdependencies and implications for poverty, food security, agriculture and natural resource use.
  • Backstopping the development of quantitative economic models and other tools for global scenario analysis
  • Managing the Global Perspectives Studies team and liaising with internal teams and external organizations
  • Long experience was accumulated in previous assignments in: policy advice, quantitative assessments and capacity development, provided in various Middle-East, European, Asian  and African Countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Syria, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Russia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, etc.;  preparation of policy-relevant documents and other material, such as tools and case studies for socio-economic policy impact analysis, poverty and income distribution
  • Backstopping the development and maintenance of policy-related publication series and web-sites for policy advice and capacity development.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Economic Policy (Università Cattolica Milan, IT) with a thesis on “International Price shocks and development: a computable General Equilibrium Approach with applications to Burkina Faso”
  • Master of Science (MSC) in Finance and Investment (Development Economics) (University of York, UK)
  • Graduated in Economics with a thesis on labour demand and wages in the wholesale and retail sector (Università Cattolica, Milan, IT)
  • Various Courses in General Equilibrium modelling, Structural change, econometrics and management

Nguyen Thi Lan Huong

Economist
Global Perspectives Studies Team
Economic and Social Development Department
At FAO since: 2012

Key areas of expertise and work

  • Regional and country-level development processes and related policy advisory for food and agriculture. Sustainable policy impact assessment analysis for agriculture and rural development.
  • Thematic areas of interest comprise the analysis of country interdependencies and contributions and limits of rural development and agricultural policies for poverty reduction and food security in the context of the market integration and climate change.

Areas of work include

  • Policy advice on agricultural restructuring and rural development for enabling poverty reduction, food security, agriculture growth and sustainable natural resource use.
  • Initiation and facilitation of country high-level policy dialogues, institutional change and cross-country knowledge dissemination. 
  • Intellectual leadership and backstopping the process of policy researches and institutional capacity building in policy development at country and regional levels.
  • Introduction of effective aid management methods as Cooperation strategic framework (CSF), Sector wide approach (SWAP), Results based management (RBM), Logical framework approach (LFA), etc.
  • Long experience working in development sector was accumulated in previous assignments in: policy research, policy advice and advocacy, policy impact assessment, development programme management, institutional reform and capacity development, provided in various Asian and The Pacific region countries such as Viet Nam, Lao PDR, Cambodia, Nepal, Fiji, etc.;  preparation of policy-relevant documents and other socio-economic assessment material for high-level policy dialogues and donor coordination to support the agricultural transformation in transition economies
  • Technical backstopping for the development and maintenance of publications and web-sites for policy advice, institutional reform and capacity building. 

Qualifications

  • PhD in Agricultural Economics (National Economic University, Viet Nam) with a thesis on “Community Based Organisations in the rural development progress: an appropriate Public Policy to promote rural clean water supply in Viet Nam”
  • Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Strategic Human Resource development (Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand)
  • Graduated in Economics with a thesis on marketing and pricing in a transition economy from the central planning to an open market economy (National Economic University, Viet Nam)
  • Various Courses in Development programme management, Macro institutional reform, Good Governance, Strategic capacity building. 

Aikaterini Kavallari

Economist
Global Perspectives Studies Team
Economic and Social Development Department
At FAO since: 2014

Key areas of expertise and work:
Quantitative analysis of long-term issues affecting global food and agriculture, especially in relation to long-term projections of food and agricultural supply and demand. Areas of work include:

  • Development and maintenance of the partial equilibrium model GAPS (Global Agriculture Perspectives System), which has been established as FAO’s tool to derive projections on World Food and Agriculture towards 2030/2050/2080 and of a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model used to derive long-term projections of agricultural and food sectors, which is used to complement the GAPS findings
  • Quantification of alternative scenarios in the domain of climate change, food losses and waste, food consumption, in relation to long-term projections of food and agricultural supply and demand and implications for food security, poverty and natural resource use.
  • Preparation of policy relevant documents and reports documenting the GAPS model and the scenarios analysed.
  • Representing the GPS team in research fora such as AgMIP (Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project)

Experience was accumulated in previous assignments in LEI – Wageningen UR, European Commission – JRC/IPTS and in the University of Giessen in: development of partial and general equilibrium models, quantification of international trade policies and analysis of regional trade agreements, modelling of fertilizer and biofuel policies, ex-post and ex-ante analysis of EU’s agricultural policies, backstopping the medium term agricultural outlooks of OECD-FAO and of the European Commission, teaching university courses on international agricultural policies, EU agricultural and food policies, cost benefit analysis and international food economics. 

Qualifications

  • PhD in agricultural economics (Justus Liebig University of Giessen, DE), with a thesis on Agricultural Policy Reforms and Trade Liberalisation in the Mediterranean Basin: A Partial Equilibrium Analysis of Regional Effects on the EU-27 and on the Mediterranean Partner Countries
  • Diploma in Agricultural Sciences, with specialization on Agricultural Economics (equivalent to Master of Science) (Aristotelian University of Thessalonica, GR)
  • More than 15 years’ experience on developing and applying equilibrium models for ex-ante impact assessments
  • Various training on partial and general equilibrium modelling as well as on modelling systems such as GAMS (General Algebraic Modelling System), GEMPACK (modelling system for CGE models) and TROLL (programming language for economic and econometric models)

Marc Mueller

Economist
FAO Global Perspectives Studies Team
At FAO since: 2015

Key areas of expertise and work

  • Global and country-level development processes and related implications for food and agriculture. Socio-economic and environmental impact assessment of changing policies, bio-physical, and technological conditions; impact analysis by means of Partial (PE) and General Equilibrium (GE) models and other quantitative analysis tools.
  • Thematic areas of interest are mainly the representation of bio-physical and technological aspects of economic systems in simulation models and the application of Bayesian methods for parameter estimation and data consolidation.

Areas of work include

  • Construction and consolidation of model databases from heterogeneous sources, using Bayesian methods (cross-entropy and related methods).
  • Developing and implementing concepts for the representation of agricultural technologies in economic simulation models.
  • Devising approaches to link different economic and simulation models for long-term projections. 
  • Previous modelling work included the application of CGE models for agricultural policy analysis in the Russian Federation and Uzbekistan, the development of regional partial supply models for climate-change assessment in Benin, Burkina Faso, and Ghana, and work with partial-general equilibrium linkages for the EU27 at regional (NUTS2) level. Creation of the required database for more than 271 regional CGEs for EU27 at NUTS2 level and for EU27 country-level CGEs for the GTAP model. Compilation of several model databases for Central Asian and West African countries at various levels of detail. Provision of lectures and training in simulation models and GAMS coding for undergraduate students, PhD candidates, and professional staff in public sector organisations.

Qualifications

  • Doctoral degree in agricultural sciences (Dr. agr., Universität Bonn, DE) with a thesis on A General Equilibrium approach to Modelling Water and Land Use Reforms in Uzbekistan
  • M.Sc. in Agricultural Economics (Dipl.-Ing. Agr., Universität Bonn, DE) with focus on quantitative policy analysis
  • More than 15 years of experience in development and application of partial and general equilibrium models, optimization models, and Bayesian data-consolidation routines
  • More than 15 years of experience in providing training and lectures in quantitative policy analyses and GAMS programming

Dominik Wisser

Natural Resources Consultant
Global Perspectives Studies Team
Economic and Social Development Department
At FAO since: 2015

Key areas of expertise and work:

  • Large scale modelling of water resources and demand
  • Water resources assessment under present-day and future climate conditions
  • Land and water constraints to food production
  • Analysis of large (spatial) data sets
  • Climate impact modelling

Education

  • PhD in Hydrology and Water Resources Management (Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany) with a thesis on Modelling of Irrigation and Reservoirs in Regional and Global Water Cycles 
  • MSc in Water Resources Engineering and Management (University of Stuttgart, Germany) 
  • BSc. In Civil Engineering (University of Siegen Germany)