Knowledge Driven Development

Yuan ZhouHead of Research and Policy Analysis - Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable AgricultureYuan Zhou brings experience in environmental economics and water management. She has worked on a range of interdisciplinary projects in developing countries including economics and management of water resources, cost evaluation of water treatment and desalination technologies, integrated studies on water/food/environment relations, and rural development issues. Yuan holds a PhD in environmental economics from University of Hamburg and previously worked as a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology Suresh C Babu is a Senior Research Fellow and Head of Capacity Strengthening at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington D.C. Before joining IFPRI in 1992 as a Research Fellow, Dr. Babu was a Research Economist at the Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Between 1989 and 1994 he spent 5 years in Malawi, Southern Africa on various capacities. He was Senior Food Policy Advisor to the Malawi Ministry of Agriculture on developing a national level Food and Nutrition Information System; an Evaluation Economist for the UNICEF-Malawi working on designing food and nutrition intervention programs; Coordinator of UNICEF/IFPRI food security program in Malawi; and a Senior Lecturer at the Bunda College of Agriculture, Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANR). He has been coordinator of IFPRI's South Asia Initiative and Central Asia Program. His past research covers a range of developmental issues including nutrition economics and policy, economics of soil fertility, famine prevention, market integration, migration, pesticide pollution, groundwater depletion, and gender bias in development. He has published more than 18 books and monographs and 80 peer reviewed journal papers. He has been on the advisory board of World Agricultural Forum and a Coordinating Lead Author of Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. He currently conducts research on Capacity Development including Economic Analysis of Extension and Advisory Services; Reforming of National agricultural Research Systems; Understanding Policy Process; and Institutional Innovations for Agricultural Transformation. He is or has been a Visiting as Honorary Professor of Indira Gandhi National Open University, India, American University, Washington DC, University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa, and Zhejiang University, China. He currently serves or has served on the editorial boards of the following journals - Food Security, Food and Nutrition Bulletin, Agricultural Economics Research Review, African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Journal of Management, and African Journal of Food, Nutrition, and Development. Dr. Babu was educated at Agricultural Universities in Tamil Nadu, India (B.S. Agriculture; M.S. Agriculture) and at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa (M.S. Economics and PhD Economics).