participants

Richard Mkandawire

New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)
NEPAD Secretariat
Agriculture Advisor
South Africa

Short biographic note

Richard Mkandawire is a socio-economist and a rural development expert. He is a graduate of the university of Malawi (Bachelor of Social Science), university of Missouri, Columbia (MA, and Msc.), and the university of East Anglia, UK (PhD).

He is currently the NEPAD advisor on agriculture. He comes from both an academic and a development practitioners’ background. He has previously taught in the Universities of Malawi, Zambia, and in South Africa. He has also served as an external examiner in a number of Universities within Southern and East Africa.

Between 1992 and 1999 he worked with the Commonwealth Secretariat as the Commonwealth Youth Programme Regional Director for Africa where he was responsible for support of national governments in youth policy development, facilitation micro financing initiatives as well as the development of a wide range of livelihood initiatives for young people.

Richard Mkandawire has over the past two decades undertaken a wide range of research and consultancy in such varied areas as; food policy and agriculture, gender and development, irrigation development, youth policy analysis and development, artisan fisheries and development, land tenure systems and agrarian development, youth and reproductive health, youth livelihoods and employment etc. He has in the process written and published extensively in these and other areas. His major publications include two books:

Food Policy and Agriculture in Southern Africa” 1993 Published by SAPES Trust.
Livelihood Pathways: Emerging Issues and Challenges for Young women and Men in Africa 2002. Co Authored with Francis Chigunta and published by the Canadian Youth Foundation in partnership with ILO and IDRC.

Besides his current position and other affiliations, Richard Mkandawire is also chair of the DFID supported Research Into Use Advisory Board and a member of the Technical advisory board of the Global Environmental Change and Food Systems. (GECAFS).