Amadou Oury Diallo is a researcher at the Centre d’Étude Régional pour l’Amélioration de l’Adaptation à la Sécheresse (CERAAS, Thiès, Senegal) of the Institut Sénégalais de Recherche Agricole (ISRA) since 2015.  His research interests are linked to understanding the molecular and physiological mechanisms put in place by plants to adapt to and tolerate water stress. To achieve this, he draws on the multi-disciplinary skills available at CERAAS, through ISRA and via partnerships to be forged and developed with national and international universities and institutes. Dr. Diallo is co-author of several scientific papers and articles published in international and specialized journals with a high impact factor.

Madeleine Kaufmann has been Senior Policy Advisor of the Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG) since 2018. Among others, she represents Switzerland in the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and is the Swiss focal point of the Agroecology Coalition, representing the European regional group in the Coalition’s Steering Committee as well. Madeleine also works part-time on an organic dairy farm. Before joining FOAG, she was with several international cooperation and development organizations, including the German Development Cooperation (GIZ), the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI), Bioversity International, and Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation.

Nayeli Martínez Hernández is an agroecological engineer from the Autonomous University of Chapingo with over 15 years of professional experience in rural development and agroecological transition. Her work has been instrumental in supporting the formation of coffee producer cooperatives in Veracruz, Mexico. Between 2019 and 2023, she held the position of Deputy Director at the Undersecretariat of Food Self-Sufficiency within the Ministry of Agriculture. Currently, she leads the Technical Support Strategy for the Reaping Sovereignty Program, continuing her commitment to strengthening food systems and rural livelihoods.

Thatheva Saphangthong is a senior natural resource management planner with experience in watershed, landscape, land use planning, resource monitoring, strategic environmental assessment and participatory upland development. He established the Coordination on the Information Knowledge Creation and Management for Agriculture and Rural Development. He has focused on the creation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and cross-sectoral information systems to connect to all key national dataset in the Lao PDR for the past ten years. At the same time, he was assigned as focal point for Lao Initiative for Conservation Agriculture and Agroecology in ASEAN (LICA), which will formulate a module for the agroecological transition in the region.

Stefanie Pondini is Co-Head of Policy and Advocacy at the Biovision Foundation, where she brings over 15 years of experience in sustainable development, agroecology, and policy advocacy. A results-driven leader, Stefanie has successfully managed international teams, spearheaded strategic initiatives, and secured funding from major donors to advance transformative projects. Her work is fueled by a deep commitment to reshaping food systems, cultivating impactful partnerships, and driving meaningful policy change at both national and international levels. Stefanie’s expertise and passion continue to influence the global discourse on sustainability and agroecological transition.

Estrella “Esther” Penunia is secretary general of the Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA). AFA is a regional alliance of national farmers organizations with 22 national farmers organizations in 16 countries, representing around 13 million small-scale family farmers, engaged in crops, livestock, fisheries, forestry, herding, and pastoralism. AFA promotes sustainable, climate-resilient, and agroecological approaches in farms, fisheries and forests. It aims to strengthen farmer cooperatives and their enterprises, empower women, and attract youth to agriculture.

Monicah Yator (Kenya) is an Indigenous Woman from Baringo (Kenya), Tugen Pastoralist Community. She is a human rights defender and an activist as well as the founder of the Indigenous Women and Girls Initiative (IWGI), a community-based organization which advocates for fundamental rights and freedom of indigenous women and girls in Baringo and beyond. Through IWGI Yator has empowered women on land rights issues and trained them on agroecological practices.

Image from Amelia Womack

A systems thinker, skilled facilitator, and practical problem-solver, Lauren Baker has worked for over 20 years in non-profit, government, academic, business, and philanthropic contexts. With Global Alliance members and partners, Lauren leads the program strategy and supports diverse organizations and initiatives including the True Cost Accounting Accelerator, Transformational Investing in Food Systems, and the Agroecology Coalition, to address global challenges related to climate, biodiversity, food security, and equity.

Dr Fergus Sinclair is professor of agroforestry at Bangor University, UK. He is Honorary Professor at CATIE (Centre for Agricultural Research and Higher Education) in Costa Rica and Honorary Editor of Agroforestry Systems. He is Co-convenor of the Agroecology Transformative Partnership Platform. He is project team leader for the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS), High-Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) report on agroecology and lead author of the background paper on agroecological approaches to realizing climate-resilient agriculture for the Global Commission on Adaptation. His transdisciplinary research is focused on combining local agroecological knowledge with formal science, measuring and modelling the performance of complex social-ecological systems, and the development of practical methods for supporting local agricultural innovation over large land areas and numbers of people while addressing fine scale variation in farmer context.

Ronnie Brathwaite is a national of Barbados, an agriculture and rural development specialist with experience in agriculture policy development, small farmer livelihoods development and agricultural health and food safety. Dr Brathwaite is a Senior Agriculture Officer at FAO where he leads the Ecosystems Approach to Sustainable Crop Production Intensification team and the Scaling up Agroecology Initiative. His areas of expertise include small farmer oriented policy development, arable land distribution programmes and services geared towards sustainable small farmer livelihood development. He previously worked with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat as the Deputy Programme Manager for Agriculture Development where he coordinated regional agriculture programmes and projects for the 15 Member Countries and developed agriculture policy in the area of agriculture and trade in agricultural goods.