Shaping Sustainable Food Systems: Trade Dynamics and Agricultural Policies

Dhanush is the Founder and Chief Climate Catalyst of Clim-Eat, the ‘think and do tank’ for food and climate which he established in 2021 at COP26. Clim-Eat focuses on bridging science and policy on food and climate issues by synthesizing knowledge, convening stakeholders, providing strategic advice, and strategic policy engagement.

His previous work experience includes roles within the private sector, NGOs, and the UN and CGIAR systems, in China, India, Thailand, The Netherlands and the UK. He has worked on a range of issues including forestry, environmental policy, climate change adaptation, and advocacy, at the national, regional, and global levels.

Dhanush has an interdisciplinary academic background, combining an MBA, MSc in Carbon management, and a PhD in Environmental Governance. He is a member of the Advisory
Boards of the EAT Foundation. ClieNFarms and the Global Food and Environment Institute
at the University of Leeds.

René van Hell is director for Inclusive Green Growth, Ambassador for Sustainable Development and Arctic Ambassador, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, since August 2021. His directorate coordinates international climate and energy policy, and it manages a portfolio of ODA activities on water, energy and food. Prior he was the Netherlands Ambassador to Hungary. Starting in November 2012, he was Director for International Enterprise at the Netherlands ministry of Foreign Affairs. He served as Deputy Director for Trade Policy and Economic Governance issues at the at the ministry of
Economic Affairs.

He worked from 2004 until September 2008 as Head of Economic Division at the Netherlands Embassy,Washington, DC. From 2000 till 2004 he was the head of an Economist Team at the Economic Policy Department of the ministry of Economic Affairs, in The Hague.

He also worked as an economist and advisor at the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, the Permanent Representation of the Netherlands to the European Union and was Advisor Energy, Development Cooperation and Budget issues at the European Parliament, Brussels/Belgium, Strasbourg/France.

René has a Masters in Economics, Business Administration (MSc/drs) and studied at the University of Amsterdam. Major: international economic relations; industrial and institutional economics: competition and regulation.

Dhanush is the Founder and Chief Climate Catalyst of Clim-Eat, the ‘think and do tank’ for food and climate which he established in 2021 at COP26. Clim-Eat focuses on bridging science and policy on food and climate issues by synthesizing knowledge, convening stakeholders, providing strategic advice, and strategic policy engagement.

His previous work experience includes roles within the private sector, NGOs, and the UN and CGIAR systems, in China, India, Thailand, The Netherlands and the UK. He has worked on a range of issues including forestry, environmental policy, climate change adaptation, and advocacy, at the national, regional, and global levels.

Dhanush has an interdisciplinary academic background, combining an MBA, MSc in Carbon management, and a PhD in Environmental Governance. He is a member of the Advisory Boards of the EAT Foundation. ClieNFarms and the Global Food and Environment Institute at the University of Leeds.

Ilaria Firmian is IFAD’s Senior Technical Specialist on Indigenous Peoples and Tribal Issues in IFAD’s Environment, Climate Gender and Social Inclusion Division. She has worked as Technical Adviser and Knowledge Officer on Environment, Climate and Natural Resources Management for 14 years in IFAD, supporting the mainstreaming of environmental, climate and social inclusion issues at policy/programme/project levels.

Prior to joining IFAD, she has been working both on Land Tenure and Socio Economic and Gender Analysis with FAO, and as NGO Project Coordinator for an EU-funded project focusing on indigenous peoples’ livelihoods in the tropical Central African rainforests.

Aik Hoe LIM is Director of the Trade and Environment Division at the World Trade Organization and oversees its work on trade and environment, as well as on the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. He joined the WTO in 1999 and has served in the External Relations Division, the Director-General’s Office and the Trade in Services Division.

He was previously Counsellor to two WTO Director-Generals, Adviser to the Director General’s Consultative Group, and Secretary to WTO committees, working groups and negotiating bodies on services trade and domestic regulation. His principal areas of interest and expertise are on trade and sustainable development, climate change, technical barriers to trade, services trade policy, and trade, health and regulation.

Renata Bueno Miranda is the Secretary of Innovation, Sustainable Development, Irrigation and Cooperativism, since the beginning of 2023.

Graduated in Food Engineering from the Federal University of Viçosa (1998) and with a Master’s Degree in Food Sciences from the Federal University of Lavras (2001) she worked in several multinational companies in areas such as Quality Management of Production and Laboratories and as well as a professor of Food Safety Management at the Federal University of Goiás (UFG) and at the National Service of Commercial Learning (Senac).

Since 2008, she is an employee at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) having acted at the Bean and Rice branch in Goiania as Deputy Chief of Administration as well as supervisor of the Institutional Development Center (NDI) with processes related to Strategic Management, Environmental Management, Stewardship, Process Improvement, Quality Management (ISO 17025, BPL) and Social Responsibility.

Moreover, she was Secretary of Institutional Development of Embrapa, for two years, responsible for corporate governance, compliance and integrated quality management. From 2019 to 2022 she was Chief of Staff of the Secretary of Innovation, Sustainable Development, Irrigation and Cooperativism.

Dr. Betty Chinyamunyamu is an accomplished Development Economist with a proven track record of devising and implementing development programmes that expand opportunities for people to lift themselves out of poverty. She specialises in strategic planning, agribusiness development; policy analysis and advocacy, food security and women empowerment.
She has over twenty years’ experience in agribusiness and is currently the CEO for the National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi (NASFAM) – Malawi’s largest independent smallholder farmer organisation with a membership of over 130,000 farmers. She is also a Director of NASFAM Commercial (NASCOMEX), NASFAM’s commercial company which specialises in agro-processing.

She is a Commissioner of the Malawi National Planning Commission. She also serves as a member of the Reserve Bank of Malawi Monetary Policy Committee, a trustee of the Economics Association of Malawi and a board member of the Agricultural Commodity Exchange for Africa (ACE). She has previously served as a Board member of the Malawi Investment and Trade Centre (MITC) and a Board Chair of the Small and Medium Entreprise Development of Malawi (SMEDI).

She holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics (distinction) from the University of Malawi; a master’s degree in Development Studies (distinction) from the University of Cambridge (UK); and a PhD from the University of Leeds (UK).

Dhanush is the Founder and Chief Climate Catalyst of Clim-Eat, the ‘think and do tank’ for food and climate which he established in 2021 at COP26. Clim-Eat focuses on bridging science and policy on food and climate issues by synthesizing knowledge, convening stakeholders, providing strategic advice, and strategic policy engagement.

His previous work experience includes roles within the private sector, NGOs, and the UN and CGIAR systems, in China, India, Thailand, The Netherlands and the UK. He has worked on a range of issues including forestry, environmental policy, climate change adaptation, and advocacy, at the national, regional, and global levels.

Dhanush has an interdisciplinary academic background, combining an MBA, MSc in Carbon management, and a PhD in Environmental Governance. He is a member of the Advisory Boards of the EAT Foundation. ClieNFarms and the Global Food and Environment Institute at the University of Leeds.

Geeta Sethi is the lead architect of the World Bank’s Food System Transformation agenda, a food system that provides the triple bottom line—prosperity, sustainability and healthy people. She also manages the World Bank’s program on Food Loss and Waste Reduction. She has more than 20 years of experience working as an economist on fragile, low-, and middle-income countries.

Her work has focused on issues of rural development, service delivery and intergovernmental fiscal policies around the world. She has delivered many lending programs to the World Bank Board and published books and articles in refereed journals on issues relating to rural labor markets, trade policy and fiscal decentralization.

Previously, she was the Chief of Staff to the Climate Change Vice President and Special Envoy, the Operations and Strategy Manger for Climate Change, and worked as the Program Manager for the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program. She has an MBA and PhD in Economics.

Dhanush is the Founder and Chief Climate Catalyst of Clim-Eat, the ‘think and do tank’ for food and climate which he established in 2021 at COP26. Clim-Eat focuses on bridging science and policy on food and climate issues by synthesizing knowledge, convening stakeholders, providing strategic advice, and strategic policy engagement.

His previous work experience includes roles within the private sector, NGOs, and the UN and CGIAR systems, in China, India, Thailand, The Netherlands and the UK. He has worked on a range of issues including forestry, environmental policy, climate change adaptation, and advocacy, at the national, regional, and global levels.

Dhanush has an interdisciplinary academic background, combining an MBA, MSc in Carbon management, and a PhD in Environmental Governance. He is a member of the Advisory Boards of the EAT Foundation. ClieNFarms and the Global Food and Environment Institute at the University of Leeds.