Dr. Agnes Kalibata
President
Dr. Kalibata has served as the President of AGRA since 2014, where she leads the organization’s efforts with public and private partners to ensure a food secure and prosperous Africa through rapid, inclusive, sustainable agricultural growth, improving the productivity and livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers in Africa.
From 2019-2021, Dr. Kalibata also served as the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for the 2021 Food Systems Summit, a catalytic process at the start of the Decade of Action to improve food systems around the world to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Paris Agreement. Prior to joining AGRA, Dr. Kalibata was Rwanda’s Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) from 2008 to 2014, where she drove programs that moved her country from a food insecure to a food secure status and became a reference point for other countries that sought to deliver agriculture transformation.
Dr. Kalibata also sits on various boards, councils and commissions including the Global Commission on Adaptation, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, the Global Panel for Agriculture & Food Systems for Nutrition, the Global Agriculture & Food Security Program (GAFSP), the Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum, the Malabo-Montpellier Panel, the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions and the Global Commission on Climate Overshoot, among others. Dr. Kalibata has a distinguished track record as an agricultural scientist, policy maker and thought leader, and she holds a doctorate in Entomology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is recipient of many prestigious awards including but not limited to the Yara Prize, now the Africa Food Prize, in 2012, an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Liège in 2018, an Honorary Doctorate from McGill University in 2019, and the National Academy of Sciences’ Public Welfare Medal in April, 2019 for her work to drive Africa’s agricultural transformation through modern sciences and effective policy thereby improving livelihoods of smallholder farmers.
In 2022, she received an Award from World Farmers Organization recognizing her leadership in mobilizing farmers’ contribution to the Food Systems Summit. She was also feted by Prince Albert II of Monaco for leading efforts towards Africa’s food security and prosperity through inclusive and sustainable agricultural growth to secure livelihoods of millions of smallholders farmer since 2014.
In 2023, Dr. Kalibata was appointed to the Advisory Committee of the 28th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). As a member of the COP28 President’s Advisory Committee, Dr. Kalibata will contribute to the development and implementation of strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change.