The HLPE-FSN has a permanent Secretariat. Its task is to support the Steering Committee and the drafting teams and all the HLPE-FSN working processes to ensure legitimacy among stakeholders and a high degree of scientific quality. It is hosted by FAO at its headquarters in Rome, Italy.
Alexandre Meybeck has 30 years of national and international experience in evidence-based policymaking and knowledge brokering. He has been Senior Technical Advisor to the Deputy Director-General of FAO. He worked in CIFOR from 2018 to 2021 as Senior Technical Advisor for the CGIAR research program on forests, trees and agroforestry (FTA). He was also Senior Adviser to the Assistant Director General of Agriculture and Consumer Protection of FAO (2010-2018).
Previously he has served in the French Ministry of Agriculture including as head of the environmental strategy and climate change office, coordinator for the orientation of agriculture law, and deputy head of the breeding division of the French national Studs. He has authored or co-authored over a hundred publications on climate change and agriculture, sustainable food systems, sustainable diets, contributions of forests and trees to sustainable development and related topics. He has graduated from École Normale Supérieure de Fontenay Saint-Cloud, Sorbonne University and IRA de Nantes.
Paola Termine is an economist with a wide experience in policy and strategy development, project formulation, capacity building, research and technical assistance at the nexus of social and agricultural policies for food security and nutrition.
She has over 20 years of professional experience at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and at the International Labour Organization (ILO) and as Adjunct Professor at the American University of Rome
From 2010 to 2014, she served as the Secretary of the International partnership for cooperation on child labour in agriculture.
Paola Termine holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics and Policy, Università degli Studi di Siena, Italy; MPhil in Development Studies, Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Sussex University, UK; MA in Economics, Università degli Studi di Bologna, Italy. National of Italy, she speaks English, French and Spanish.
Silvia Meiattini is a communication specialist with more than ten years of experience in the private, as well as in the public and nonprofit sectors. Silvia joined FAO in 2020. Among other occupations, she worked as Communication Manager at a multinational economic and financial consulting company and was the Director of national and international projects of internal and external communications, institutional and public relations for major private clients, while working for a communication agency. Furthermore, she was a member of the Cabinet of the regional Minister of Agriculture and Environment of Andalucía in Spain, and she worked as a researcher for the Institute of Advanced Social Studies – Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas of Spain, as well as in policy and market analysis for the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture and Environment.
Silvia holds a master's degree in International Relations from the University of Florence, Italy, as well as a master’s degree in Climate Change from the Institute of Environmental Sciences of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
Massimo has been administrative support of the HLPE-FSN secretariat since 2012, almost since its establishment. Massimo has a strong bicultural (Italian and French) background. He joined FAO 19 years ago in the Special Emergency Desk of the Emergency Department for the development of agriculture in any country in a political transition.
Before joining the United Nations, Massimo had worked for the French Ministry of Culture in many Centres Chorégraphiques Nationaux then, after graduating in dance in Lyons, had become assistant choreographer at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, also working as production assistant, in logistical support and communication for the world tours and press conferences.
