Scientists

Mbaye Yade holds a Ph. D. in Agricultural Economics from the Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel (Federal Republic of Germany). He has capitalized more than 30 years of experience in agricultural and rural development, food and nutrition security, policy planning, implementation and monitoring and evaluation, etc.

He coordinated in the early 1990’s the “Projet d’Appui Régional aux Offices Céréaliers” (PAROC), a joint GTZ/CILSS-Project aimed at improving the effectiveness of the Sahelian cereal marketing boards.

From 1996 to 2004, he worked for the Department of Agricultural Economics of Michigan State University as In-country researcher associated with the regional food security research program (PRISAS) of the “Institut du Sahel” (INSAH) in Bamako on: assessing the impact of the CFA franc devaluation and other macroeconomic measures in general on food security and real incomes in West Africa, WTO Negotiations related research, links between child nutrition and agricultural growth in Mali, etc

From 2005 to 2021, he coordinated the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System for West Africa (ReSAKSS-WA) based at IITA. He has been supporting ECOWAS and its member states to implement ECOWAP-CAADP. His activities covered the National and Regional Agricultural and Food Security Investment Plans (NAFSIPs and RAFSIP) elaboration process and their monitoring and evaluation. He also supported the Joint Sector Review (JSR) and Biennial Review (BR) processes in the ECOWAS region at national and regional levels and also at continental level.

Ismael Fofana is the Director of the Department of Capacity and Deployment at AKADEMIYA2063. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Paris 1 - Sorbonne.

He conducts research and provides technical supports and contributes to strengthen capacities to improve economic development policies in Africa. His work focuses on issues related to agricultural and food macro policies, and gender economic inequality and poverty reduction.

Ismael worked for the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington D.C. (2010-2020) and the Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP) at Laval University in Canada (2003-2010). He established and expanded the activities of the African Office of PEP in Dakar, Senegal and assisted in the overall management of the network as director for Africa (2005-2007). He headed the IFPRI West and Central Africa Office in Dakar, Senegal (2014-2017) and coordinated the network component of the African Growth and Development Policy (AGRODEP) Modeling Consortium.

Over the last decade, Ismael has coordinated the deployment of AGRODEP members and ReSAKSS supports and contributed to provide technical assistance to and strengthen the capacity of African Union member States to domesticate the African Union’s Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Program (CAADP).

Getaw Tadesse holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (Norway). He has more than 10 years of experience in agricultural development and food security research and project management.

Before joining AKADEMIYA2063, he worked as a Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn, Germany. His research seeks to understand (a) the dynamics of food prices and trades at local, national, regional and global markets; (b) the role of the private sector and civil society in African agri-food system and public supports needed to enhance their competitiveness; and (c) the impacts of policies and programs on food and nutrition security, commercialization of smallholders, competitiveness of private enterprises and food markets.

His research has a geographical focus in Africa with extensive experience in Ethiopian agricultural development and food systems. He is very conversant on household and plot level data collection and econometric methods.

He has published over 20 articles in professional journals and books listed in Google scholar with citations (782) and h-index (10). Furthermore, he has contributed to enhancing the capacity of African experts and policymakers on national agricultural investment planning, assessment of program and policy opportunities and the use of evidence-based planning and implementation of food security and employment generation programs.

Dr Wambo Yamdjeu is the Director of Knowledge Systems at AKADEMIYA2063. He is an international Agricultural Economist and rural development specialist with over 20 years of experience. Until December 28, 2021 and prior to joining A2063 in his current capacity, Augustin spent 08 years at the AUDA-NEPAD working on various aspects of state capabilities development, strategic policy reforms, facilitation of private sector engagement in the food systems, program design and implementation in the context of translating the political visioning of agriculture transformation encapsulated in the Malabo Declaration, into a set of tangible actions. As such, he has made extensive contributions into knowledge management, monitoring and evaluation, multi-stakeholder engagement platform facilitation, and tailored coaching across different governance levels of the CAADP process.

Before joining the AUDA-NEPAD in September 2013 for the second time, Dr Wambo Yamdjeu had served at the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development as their Task Leader (Advisor) on CAADP and ARD in Africa. This tenure was an eye opener that made him familiar with the political economy, the aid/development effectiveness agenda and discourse. As a versatile thinker, who pays attention to details, Dr Wambo Yamdjeu has increasingly gained interest in the nexus between climate change and the transition towards our changing food systems as the continent seeks to ensure resilience and sustainability.

Always keen on making valuable contributions in both scholar debate and practical field endeavors to problem solving in Africa, Augustin holds a Ph.D. (with distinctions) in Agricultural Economics from the University of Paris-Sud 11, an M.Sc. in Agricultural Economics from the National Advanced School of Agronomy (ENSA) of Montpellier, France, and an M.Sc. in Agric Engineering from the University of Dschang, Cameroon. Augustin demonstrates fluency in professional French and English.

Sunday Pierre Odjo is Deputy Director of the Department of Operational Support. He is an agricultural economist with research interest in farm household modeling and trade and agricultural policy analysis.

Before transitioning over to AKADEMIYA2063, he served as a Senior Research Coordinator in the Africa Division of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Over the past ten years, he has supported West African Authorities for the development of national agricultural investment plans as part of IFPRI’s scientific and technical assistance to the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Program (CAADP).

He recently led several survey projects in Niger as part of a collaborative research work between IFPRI and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). Prior to joining IFPRI, he served as an Agricultural and Trade Policy Advisor in the Secretariat of the Conference of Ministers of Agriculture of West and Central Africa, facilitating country-level implementation of CAADP Framework for Improving Rural Infrastructure and Trade-Related Capacities for Market Access.

He holds a PhD in Rural Economics from the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium and an MA in Geography and Land Use Planning from the National University of Benin.

Prior to joining AKADEMIYA2063 as Director of Data Management, Digital Products and Technology, Racine worked as a ReSAKSS Research Coordinator at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). His primary areas of research are in Predictive Modeling, Machine Learning techniques applied to geospatial data and crop type classification with unsupervised learning techniques. Racine believes in harnessing technology and digital tools to impact policy and decision-making processes in the agricultural sector.

Racine is a 2018 Obama Leaders Africa program fellow. He holds a Master's degree in Mathematical Modeling and Multi-Scale Simulation through a joint degree program between the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées and the Paris-Est Marne-La-Vallée University. He subsequently earned a doctoral degree in the field of Engineering Sciences applied to Spatial Transport Systems, through the French Space Agency (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales) and the University of Bordeaux.

Dr Paul Guthiga is a Senior Scientist at AKADEMIYA2063. He is an Agricultural Economist with over 17 years’ experience in agricultural research and policy engagement in the Eastern Africa region. For the past 11 years, Paul has been undertaking strategic policy analysis, monitoring and evaluation and capacity building in supporting the implementation of the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) in Eastern and Central Africa under the ReSAKSS program.

His areas of research interest include regional trade, impact evaluation, natural resource management, climate change, price analysis among others. He has published his work in various peer reviewed journals and book Chapters.

Paul is a native of Kenya and holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics from the University of Bonn, Germany (2007). He obtained his B.Sc. (Agriculture) and M.Sc. (Agricultural Economics) degrees both from the University of Nairobi, Kenya.

Dr Mahamadou Tankari is a Senior Scientist at AKADEMIYA2063. Previously, Mahamadou worked at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Senegal where he carried out policy-oriented research.

His research interests cover agricultural economics, health economics, food security and poverty issues. He has authored and co-authored many published articles in peer-reviewed journals including Food security, Journal of Development Studies, Economic Modelling, Agricultural Economics and Journal of African Economies.

Mahamadou received his PhD in Economics from the University of Pau, France. He holds a Master’s degree in Statistics and Economics from ENSAE Senegal and a Masters in Mathematics from the University 08 Mai 1945, Algeria.

Dr. Fatima Olanike Kareem is an Economist, with a doctoral degree from the Georg-August-University of Göttingen, Germany. Her area of research is development economics. Her current research interests span trade - market access issues - food policies, trade policies particularly non-tariff measures such as sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, safeguard measures, rule of origin, price control measures, etcetera. She also conducts research on gender and labour outcomes of trade, agri-food and trade policies. She works extensively on the in-depth analyses of the contents of trade agreements, especially between Africa-EU, Africa-US trade relations and other Africa’s trading partners. Her research strategy extends across theoretical and applied econometrics.

She has more than 12 years of cognate experience in her area of expertise and also has many years of experience in coordinating and managing research projects. In addition, she has led research projects as principal investigator and also has been involved as a team member. Besides research, she has work experience in the development of policies in the areas of agri-food trade and policies as well as gender issues. She has been involved in the G20 Think20 (T20) policy development and engagement. She has increased her expertise with various further technical trainings from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in the areas of trade, trade and poverty analysis, trade policies and gender analysis.

Dr. Kareem has published in peer-reviewed international journals, policy briefs and has presented in several conferences. Prior to joining AKADEMIYA2063, she has worked as a post-doctoral research scientist at the Georg-August-University of Göttingen and the University of Kassel. She was also a visiting researcher at the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Finland.

Dr. Seraphin Niyonsenga is a Senior Scientist in the Department of Policy Innovation at AKADEMIYA2063.

Seraphin Niyonsenga joined AKADEMIYA2063 as a Senior Scientist in the Department of Policy Innovation on the 1st of July 2022. He is a former US Hubert Humphrey Fellow in Agriculture and Rural Development at University of California Davis, USA.

Seraphin holds a Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine and a Maitrise en Sciences Biologiques et et Medicales from Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal. He also holds a master’s degree in Livestock Production and Management from the National Dairy Research Institute and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Environmental Education from Kurukshetra University, India.

He received a Certificate of Competence in Agriculture Policy from the UN- African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP), Dakar, Senegal, and was trained in Public Policy Analysis by the Africa Cabinet Government Network (ACGN).

Dr. Seraphin Niyonsenga has over 14 years of experience of in food and agriculture sector blended with extension, technical and policy experiences in both public and development sectors. From 2013 - 2021, he served as Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analyst in the Government Action Coordination Unit of the Office of The Prime Minister in Rwanda and spearheaded the revision and analysis of key public policies namely the National Agriculture Policy and the National Land Policy and their implementing legal instruments.

Before joining AKADEMIYA2063, he was serving as Senior Policy and Institutional Development Specialist for the USAID Rwanda Feed The Future Orora Wihaze Activity (a USD 13.8 million project aimed at improving the production and consumption of animal sourced foods) and facilitated co-creation with a local logistics company of the very first last mile delivery model for agricultural inputs in remote rural districts of Rwanda. In the same quality, Seraphin supported the Ministry of Trade in the formulation of Meat Hygiene Regulations and organization of the National Meat Safety and Hygiene Campaign.

Dr. Ndeye Yacine BARRY is a Geographer and Environmentalist, with a Ph.D. in Climate Change and Biodiversity, from the West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use, University Felix Houphouet Boigny Abidjan, Cote d´Ivoire, where she graduated in 2020. She holds a Master in Geography, option Ecosystem/Environment from the University Gaston Berger of Saint- Louis, Senegal, and a Professional Master in Integrated Management and Sustainable Development of the West African Littoral from the University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar.

Her research interests include monitoring natural ecosystem functioning, climate change, forest dynamics and management, GIS, Remote Sensing, and Climate modeling. Some of her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals and some others are under review.

Dr. Ndeye Yacine BARRY joins AKADEMIYA2063 as a Scientist within the Department of Policy and Innovation in 2022. Before joining AKADEMIYA2063, she worked for the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) as a postdoctoral researcher in Climate Change Sciences. Her work involved analyzing and predicting climate change impacts on forest area distribution in Africa.

For the past five years, she accumulated professional experiences within both public institutions like the Division of Climate Change, the Direction of Marine Protected Areas, and the Great Green Wall Agency of the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development in Senegal and private organizations such as the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), the Japanese International Corporation Agency (JICA) especially in the sector of Environment, climate change, and sustainable development.

Through her new appointment with AKADEMIYA2063, Dr. Ndeye Yacine BARRY is looking for new challenges where she can continue to contribute to building sustainable development in Africa, ensuring food security, building resilient and smart agriculture systems, and fighting against climate change.

Julia Collins is a Senior Associate Scientist with AKADEMIYA2063, based in Washington, DC. She supports a variety of ReSAKSS projects and AKADEMIYA2063 publications.

She previously worked at IFPRI as a Senior Research Analyst, contributing to support for National Agriculture Investment Plans and other ReSAKSS projects.

She earned her MS in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2012 and holds a BA from Knox College in French and International Studies.

Wondwosen Tefera holds BA degree in Economics and MSc in economic policy analysis from the Addis Ababa University. For the last eight and a half years, he has been working as a research officer at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Africa Division based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

He has concrete experience in various research works and program M&E. He is engaged in collecting, verifying, tracking and reporting 30+ CAADP indicators based on the CAADP result framework and annually publish on the Annual Trend and Outlook Report (ATOR).

Prior to joining IFPRI, he took part on several consultancy jobs for various domestic and international organizations. Furthermore, he has worked on several surveys, as well as project and program evaluations in different capacities. He has strong skill and practical application experience on data analysis using Stata, SPSS, excel, ArcMap and also on survey data management using CSPro.

Lea Vicky MAGNE DOMGHO is a Senior Associate Scientist with AKADEMIYA2063’s Knowledge System Department, based in Dakar Senegal.

Prior to joining AKADEMIYA2063, she worked at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) for eight years as Research Analyst. Her research examines agriculture productivity, agriculture and food security and nutrition linkages, and institutional issues related to agricultural development.

Lea received a Master’s degree in Statistics & Applied Economics from the National School of Statistics and Economic Analysis of Dakar in 2012 and a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from the University of Yaounde 1 in 2009.

Khadim Dia is a Senior Associate Scientist at AKADEMIYA2063. He is an economic statistician engineer whose work entails collecting qualitative and quantitative data relevant and consistent with rigorous methods to guarantee quality of the results.

Prior to AKADEMIYA2063 Khadim worked at IFPRI - as Chief Statistician -where he mainly supported agricultural policies in Senegal within the PAPA project. The project included more than 20 surveys on different agricultural value chains and his responsibility ranged from the design of surveys to the production of statistics and the development of econometric models.

Khadim graduated as an engineer from the National School of Statistics and Economic Analysis in Senegal (ENSAE) in 2015. He also is recipient of a certification in Machine Learning from Stanford University. Prior to join IFPRI, he worked at the National Agency for Statistics and Demography of Senegal (ANSD).

Leysa is a Statistician and Economist Engineer graduated in 2017 from the National School of Statistics and Economic Analysis (ENSAE) in Dakar. Prior to that, she holds a Bachelor in Math’s- Physics and Computer science and a M.Sc. in Probability and statistics from Cheikh Anta Diop University.

Her previous work experience includes research on agricultural and food security policies with a focus on asymmetries in Senegalese rice market during her Internship at Initiative Prospective Agricole et Rural (IPAR) in collaboration with IFPRI. Leysa has also served as a Lecturer in Econometrics especially in panel data analysis at ENSAE school, Dakar Senegal.

After her graduation, she worked at IFPRI as a research analyst for almost 3 years. She was involved in different projects including the National Agricultural Investment Plan (NAIP) Analytical Support for ECOWAS and Southern African countries, the Voice for Change Partnership (V4CP) led by The Netherlands Development Organization (SNV) and the PAPA Project (Senegal Agricultural Program Support). Her main tasks were to assist in data processing, economic analysis, literature review and draft reports. Her research interest includes mainly Inclusive growth and value chain development, structural transformation, food, and nutrition security and other topics related to agricultural productivity.

Aissatou NDOYE is an Associate Research Scientist at AKADEMIYA2063 in the Department of Data Management, Digital Products and Technology. She has a background in Software Engineering and in Machine Learning.

Prior to joining AKADEMIYA2063, she worked at Paris-Est Creteil University laboratory (LACL) as an intern in Embedded Systems where she contributed to the development of the embedded software of the nanosatellite OGM-SA and the modeling. After that, she worked as a Machine Learning Teaching Assistant in the African Masters of Machine Intelligence at AIMS Senegal.

She has a focus on Computer Vision and Speech Recognition and is passionate about solving problems that impact our society.

Aissatou holds a Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems from Gaston Berger University of Saint-Louis (Senegal) and a Master’s degree in Machine Learning from the African Masters of Machine Intelligence at AIMS (Rwanda).

Mansour DIA, Associate Research Scientist (Machine Learning), has joined the AKADEMIYA2063 Data Management, Digital Products and Technology team based in Dakar, Senegal. His work involves research, design, implementation, optimization, and deployment of machine learning models combined with remote sensing products to solve business needs related to African agriculture.

Prior to joining AKADEMIYA 2063, Mansour had his first experience as an Artificial Intelligence engineer and worked on the orchestration of the value chain in digital agriculture for smallholder farmers in Senegal. He also worked in water access optimization using satellite imagery and machine learning in rural areas.

Mansour holds a master’s degree in Machine Intelligence from the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) and a Master in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering from Gaston Berger University (UGB) in Saint Louis, Senegal, with a focus on wireless sensors network and their applications on water quality monitoring.