Since March 2023, the Agroecology Coalition has a new Secretariat, hosted by the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Rome, Italy.
The Secretariat team is headed by Oliver Oliveros as the Coordinator of the Coalition, together with Valentina Pavarotti as Communications Officer. Emile Frison who served as interim Coordinator now serves as Senior Advisor. In May, an Associate Coordinator will complete the team. The Secretariat is responsible for the daily management and coordination of the work of the Coalition.
The new team builds on the efforts of the Interim secretariat hosted at CIFOR-ICRAF in Nairobi who kicked off the work from the inception of the Coalition in 2021 until now.
Recently, Oliver Oliveros participated virtually in the 1st East African Agroecology Conference (21-24 March, Nairobi) where he presented and provided updates on the work of the Agroecology Coalition. He also took part virtually in a roundtable discussion during the Regional preparatory meeting for the Food Systems Stocktaking Moment (STM) held on 28 March in Geneva on the sidelines of the 2023 UNECE Regional Forum on Sustainable Development where he talked about how the Agroecology Coalition is working to mobilize stakeholders to support food systems transformation and accelerate the achievement of the SDGs.
Also on 28 March at the IFAD HQ in Rome, he joined the Her Excellency Her Excellency Madame Fatimata Cheiffou, Ambassador of Niger to Rome, Juan-Lucas Restreppo, Director-General of the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, Elizabeth Nsimadala, President of the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation and other discussants at the EU-IFAD Dialogue on ”Investing in youth for a sustainable future in agriculture and Food Systems: A dialogue on the way forward.”
In his intervention in these events, Oliveros highlighted the work of the Coalition and its members in developing a methodological framework to assess a projects’, programmes’ and project portfolios’ ‘agroecologicalness, using the HLPE’s 13 principles of agroecology as foundation, citing as well some concrete in country-actions that Coalition members have designed and are implementing to support a transition towards agroecological practices. A recording of the event is available here.
He also mentioned that the Coalition is building on the efforts of its membres and making these more visible in an effort to amplify the role of agroecology in transforming food systems.
Picture ©IFAD/Flavio Ianniello