Price increases and supply shortages following Russia's invasion of Ukraine have hampered access to food, humanitarian aid and trade markets.

On July 21, join ResilienceLinks for a discussion of the implications of these supply shortfalls on global resilience. A panel including representatives from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme, the International Food Policy Research Institute and CARE USA will discuss solutions to the global crises arising from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Tim Frankenberger, ResilienceLinks' July theme month host and the President of TANGO International, will moderate the discussion.

Speaker Information

• Tim Frankenberger is the President and co-founder of TANGO International and a global expert on food security, livelihood approaches and resilience. Tim has over forty years of experience in international development, with specialized skills in project design, M&E and policy analysis. He previously served as a Senior Food Security Advisory and Livelihood Security Coordinator at CARE International and as a Farming Systems Research Specialist at the University of Arizona. Tim has published numerous articles on household food security and resilience. Tim's graduate work includes a MA as well as doctoral studies in Anthropology, with a minor in Agricultural Economics. His current research interests include resilience measurement in food insecure contexts.

• An Italian and Swiss national, Volli Carucci has been recently assigned as the new director for the Resilience and Food Systems Service of the Policy and Programme Division at the World Food Programme (WFP) headquarters in Rome, Italy. Volli has 30 years of working experience with the UN and 25 with WFP in the area of livelihood assets creation and resilience building. Volli is an agronomist by training with consolidated experience in natural resources management, soil conservation and water harvesting, particularly in dry lands and degraded ecosystems. Volli has managed a major WFP livelihoods and resilience-building program for ecosystems rehabilitation in Ethiopia, called MERET, for over a decade, and has been a contributor to the design of the Ethiopia Productive Safety Net Programme. He worked as a senior advisor in the Eastern and Central Africa regional bureau from 2006 to 2008, and then at WFP headquarters in Rome from mid-2008 to mid-2016 as the Chief of the Livelihood Assets & Prevention Unit, where he helped to reposition WFP in the area of food assistance for assets, livelihoods, resilience and partnerships. From mid-2016 to mid-2021, he headed the Resilience & Livelihoods Unit in the WFP West and Central Africa Regional Bureau — responsible for scaling up a major integrated resilience program for the Sahel.

• John Ulimwengu is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics and Master in Economics from The Ohio State University, and a Master of Arts in Development Economics from Williams College. His research interests include resilience, food systems, poverty dynamics and network analysis. Since 2007, Dr. Ulimwengu has been involved in strategic research on the transformation of agricultural sector in Africa under the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program agenda. In 2017-2021, he was the Africa wide coordinator of the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System.

• Vidhya Sriram is the Global Director of Village Saving & Loan Associations (VSLAs) at CARE USA. Vidhya specializes in designing and implementing programs focused on targeting the specific needs, constraints and capabilities of women and girls and marginalized populations in CARE’s programming. She manages CARE’s VSLA  2030 strategy implementation, the only scaling strategy that CARE has formally endorsed. Vidhya’s expertise in in working across programmatic areas to transform broad organizational goals into practical solutions. She has over 14 years of experience designing, managing and fundraising for CARE’s emergency and food and nutrition security portfolios. She has worked with over 30 CARE country offices and specializes in supporting the design of integrated programs that build on CARE’s global experience and ongoing initiatives. Vidhya is originally from India and holds a master’s degree in Public Policy from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.

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