CFS Intersessional events on Nutrition

Lynnette Neufeld (Moderator)

Director of Monitoring, Learning and Research, GAIN

Under Lynnette’s leadership, the MLR team works with the programmatic areas within GAIN to develop strategic research and learning agendas and provides the technical support to ensure quality in design, implementation, and timely dissemination of such work. The unit also leads on GAINs internal performance measurement. Lynnette comes to GAIN with over 25 years of experience in the field of nutrition where she has worked in a variety of technical advisory and academic positions. Lynnette continues to be highly active in the global nutrition community as chair of the Micronutrient Forum Steering Committee, a Board member of the American Society of Nutrition, among many other global activities.

Anna Herforth

Adjunct Associate Research Scientist, Columbia University, US

Anna Herforth is an independent researcher and consultant specializing in the links between agriculture, food systems and nutrition. She holds a Ph.D. from Cornell in International Nutrition, an M.S. in Food Policy from Tufts, and a B.S. in Plant Science from Cornell University. She leads a project on Indicators of Affordability of Nutritious Diets in Africa (IANDA) with Tufts University, and is an Adjunct Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University. She has helped shape the agriculture-nutrition conversation globally through working with a wide range of groups, including the World Bank, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), other UN and CGIAR agencies, government aid agencies, nonprofit organizations, and academia. Dr. Herforth has worked in Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, including in many rural and indigenous communities. She co-organizes and co-founded the Agriculture-Nutrition Community of Practice, a professional community of over 4,000 members from 90 countries.

John O. Nortey

Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ghana

A Deputy Director of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Statistics, Research and Information Directorate (SRID). The head of Marketing Services Unit. The unit mainly deals with Market Information. Trains enumerators in data collection. He has been working in SRID for the past thirteen years. Until his appointment as the Head of the Marketing Services Unit in December, 2014, he was the Deputy Head of the Agricultural Statistics and Census Unit for three years. He has worked with the Ministry of Finance as a District Budget Officer for four years. He was the main trainer and supervisor for the Dangme East District during the 2000 Ghana Housing and Population Census. He has been involved in many programs like the Ghana Agricultural Insurance Program, Ghana Agriculture Production Survey.

Aldo Verver y Vargas Duarte

Federal Agency for Protection from Sani-tary Risk COFEPRIS, Mexico

Aldo Heladio Verver y Vargas Duarte is a Food Industry engineer by training, he holds a MBA from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM). He advised the Presiding Board of the Health Commission in the Congress of the 51st Legislature on regulatory affairs and  the Federal Commissioner for Protection against Sanitary Risks, before taking the position of Executive Director of Special Programs in the Sanitary Enforcement Commission at COFEPRIS. From 2016 he is Deputy Director-General on the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risk of Mexico.

Vivi Yulaswati

Ministry of Development Planning, Indonesia

Vivi Yulaswati is the Director for Poverty Reduction and Social Welfare, Indonesia’s Ministry of Planning (BAPPENAS).  She is responsible for developing policy direction, strategies, programs and budget in relates to poverty reduction and welfare, as well as its monev, regulatory and institution frameworks.  

She has involved in designing Indonesia’s Conditional Cash Transfers and its transformation, social safety net programs, integrated social assistance and subsidy reform, the National Social Security System, National Strategy for Financial Inclusion, big data research and integrated refferal system to support comprehensive social protection. She holds PhD in Planning and Development from University of Southern California (2004), Master in Urban and Regional Planning from University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA (1999), and took several training courses, in evaluation, leadership, change management, and social protection.

Nick Deschuyffeleer

Belgian Food and Drink Federation, Belgium

Nick Deschuyffeleer obtained in 2006 the degree of Master in Bioscience Engineering Chemistry at Ghent University (Belgium). Between 2006 and 2012 he has worked as a Research assistant & lab manager at the Department of Food science and – technology, University college Ghent and obtained in 2012 a PhD in Applied Biological Sciences. Since 2013, Nick is working for FEVIA (Belgian Food and Drink Federation). First as an Advisor but since 2017 as Food Policy Manager. His principal responsibility is developing policy around the theme ‘Health and Nutrition’. The specific policy domains are: nutritional composition communication, product composition (reformulation) and responsible marketing. Nick also does the follow-up of the health & nutrition action plans of the different governments in Belgium. 

Ana Paula Bortoletto

Instituto Brasileiro de Defesa do Consumidor, Brazil

Ana Paula Bortoletto is a nutritionist with PhD in Nutrition in Public Health. She is currently a food researcher and leader of the Healthy Diets Program of the Brazilian Institute for Consumer Protection (Idec) and a scientific researcher at the Center of Epidemiological Research in Nutrition and Health (NUPENS) of Sao Paulo University. She is a member of the National Council of Food and Nutrition Security - CONSEA since 2014 as part of the civil society representation and member of the Alliance on Healthy and Adequate Diets, a civil society coalition to push forward public policies on food and nutrition security in Brazil.

Carin Smaller (Moderator)

Advisor on Agriculture and Investment, International Institute for Sustainable Development

Carin Smaller is an Advisor on Agriculture and Investment at IISD. She has 15 years experiencing living and working in several developing countries, including Tanzania, Namibia, Nepal and India, advising governments and communities on sustainable development. She was director of the Trade Information Project in Geneva which provided advice to developing country trade negotiators on the agriculture negotiations for the Doha Development Round. She joined IISD seven years ago and since then has advised dozens of governments on how to maximize the benefits from foreign investment in the agriculture sector. She holds a bachelor of laws and a bachelor of political science from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

Antonio González

Movimiento Agroecológico de América Latina y el Caribe (MAELA), Guatemala

Antonio González, of the Maya community, is a member of REDSAG (Red de Defensa y Construcción de Soberanía en Guatemala/National Network for the Defense and Construction of Food Sovereignty in Guatemala) and a member of the Policy Council of MAELA (Movimiento Agroecológico de América Latina y el Caribe/Agroecological Movement of Latin America and the Caribbean). His scope of his work has developed around the recuperation and protection of ancestral knowledge and food production systems based on agroecology in the framework of food sovereignty of the indigenous peoples. His work focuses on the recuperation of health and nutrition as part of the holistic development of the biocultural territory of the indigenous and traditional peoples of Latin America.

Rachel Nugent

Vice President, Chronic Noncommunicable Diseases Global Initiative, Research Triangle Institute International

Rachel Nugent, PhD, has more than 30 years of experience in global development as a researcher, practitioner, and policy advisor to governments. She leads a team charged with providing policy analysis, implementation, and evaluation of cost-effective strategies to prevent and control global noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Dr. Nugent is a member of the Lancet Commission on Noncommunicable Diseases and Injuries of the Poorest Billion, the U.S. Institute of Medicine Committee on Economic Evaluation, and the International Expert Group for the Global Nutrition Report. She also works with the World Health Organization Global Coordination Mechanism Working Group on Noncommunicable Disease Financing and is on the External Advisory Committee of the NCD Alliance and Children’s Heartlink. She was the lead author and chair of The Race Against Drug Resistance, a 2010 report from the Center for Global Development’s expert working group on global drug resistance.

Andrea Pezzana

San Giovanni Bosco Hospital and University of Turin, Italy

Andrea Pezzana is a Professor of Clinical Nutrition and Preventive Clinical Nutrition at the School of Medicine of the University of Turin. Since 2009 he is also directing the Hospital Clinical Nutrition, San Giovanni Bosco Hospital.

A medical doctor by training, he holds a post-graduate diploma in Dietetics and Clinical Nutrition from the University of Pavia and PsyD in Clinical and Community Psychology from the University of Turin.

Lilian Rahal

Deputy National Secretary for Food Security and Nutrition, Brazil

Anthropologist, with a master degree in Sociology from Universidade Estadual de Campinas – Unicamp, Mrs Lilian Rahal has a 16 years old public career. As a Specialist on Public Policies and Governmental Management, has participated in some relevant public programs such as the Zero Hunger Program and Brazil Without Extreme Poverty Plan (BSM). At the Brazilian Ministry for Social Development since 2011, she has had the position of Deputy Secretary of National Secretariat for Food and Nutritional Security. She has also been representative in the Interministerial Council of Agroecology and in the Rural and Sustainable Development Council, as well as a government participant of the Food and Nutritional Security National Council. From 2001 to 2010, was Chief of Staff at the National Secretariat of Family Farming of the Ministry for Agrarian Development. During her professional life, she managed cooperation projects developed by international agencies such as FAO, PNUD, IICA.

Marie Konaté

CEO, Protein Kissée-la’, Côte d’Ivoire

Marie Konate is CEO of Protein Kissée Là (PKL) the first Ivorian company to successfully introduce cereals for children age 6 to 24 months, within the critical 1,000 day period, to the local market. PKL’s partnership with GAIN aims to improve access by poor Ivoirian households to a high quality fortified complementary food on a sustained basis reaching approximately one fifth of infants aged 6 to 24 months in the country. They cereal is marketed in a way that protects breastfeeding and promotes optimal infant and young child feeding practices. In February 2014, in recognition of her work, Marie received the prestigious Medal of Chevalier of the Order of Agricultural Merit by France (Médaille de Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite Agricole).