Authors

Hussein Tadicha Wario, a son of Borana pastoralists from northern Kenya, is the current Executive Director of the Center for Research and Development in Drylands.

Saskia Widenhorn is the head of the Cameroon cotton component and the Sub-Saharan Cotton Initiative of the GIZ Global Project "Sustainability and Value Chain in Agricultural Supply Chains" (GV AgriChains). Previously, she worked on sustainability in global supply chains at the International Labor Organization (ILO), the social enterprise Fairphone, and GIZ in Myanmar and Cambodia.

Kah Walla is an activist, entrepreneur and political leader from Cameroon. She symbolizes the new generation of African political leadership which firmly believes in the continent's ability to achieve global standards of development and demands that this be done in respect of principles of good governance, equity and democracy.

Björn Willms is communications advisor for the ‚Initiative for sustainable agricultural supply chains’ (INA) of the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ). Furthermore, he i spart of the secretariat of the ‚partnership for sustainable orange juice‘ (PANAO). Willms coordinates the working group ‚communications and fair trade‘ (AG Kommunikation Fairer Handel), initiated in 2020. Thus did he and his colleagues develop the joint communiqué #ichwillfair, promoting it successfully.

Christel Weller-Molongua has been leading the Rural Development and Agriculture Division at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH in Bonn since 2013. After studying geography with a focus on agricultural geography at the University of Trier she completed her post-graduate studies at the Center of International Rural Development of the Humboldt University in Berlin. She started her career with GIZ in Niger in 1989. This was followed by 14 years of project management and implementation in various African countries.

As a scaling catalyst at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) Lennart Woltering helps scientists and development practitioners scale the impact of their work beyond the project boundaries. He advocates for a shift in mindset around scaling from “reaching many” to include sustainability, responsibility and systems change. Passionate about translating academic research findings into practical application, he developed the Scaling Scan tool that helps users quickly identify bottlenecks and opportunities for scaling. Beyond CIMMYT and the CGIAR, Lennart advises a range of development organizations, alliances and donors on scaling strategies.

Dr. Annette Weber is Senior Fellow in the Middle East and Africa Research Division of the German Institute for International and Security Studies (SWP) in Berlin. Her regional expertise is in the Horn of Africa, she works on conflict analysis, fragile states, non-state-actors and state building as well as Jihadist groups in Africa. Her current focus is mainly on the situation in Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia. She is involved in the mediation effort of the national Dialogue between government and armed and unarmed opposition in Sudan. As a senior advisor for the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue she is advising on conflict resolutions throughout the Horn of Africa.

Dr. Weber had a two year residency in Ethiopia 2010-2012 with in depth research in the Horn of Africa. From 2012 she was head of department at SWP. She writes extensively and advises the Bundestag and the German administration on these issues. Previously she worked as a coordinator for the Ecumenical Network on Central Africa mainly on the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. Annette Weber was researcher with amnesty international in London for Sudan and worked as a consultant for Human Rights Watch and amnesty international on Sudan and Uganda. She received her PhD from the Free University Berlin and teaches at several Universities on international relations and peace and conflict resolution.

Michael Windfuhr is a political scientist, educated at the University of Heidelberg. Since 2011, he has been the Deputy Director of the German Institute for Human Rights, the national human rights institution of Germany. For the five years prior to this, he served as Human Rights Director of Bread for the World, the development organisation of the Protestant church of Germany.

Jes Weigelt is Head of Programmes at TMG Research gGmbH, the research wing of TMG. Töpfer, Müller, Gassner. ThinkTank for Sustainability. He tweets at @jes_tmg.