The latest in a series of Grand Challenges lectures from the Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Abstract

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is a Specialised Agency of the United Nations and an International Financial Institution. Broadly speaking, by providing concessional loans and grants for development projects and programmes,  IFAD’s mandate is to assist poor rural people improve their food security, nutritional levels and incomes for better livelihoods. As a multilateral development organisation, IFAD plays an important role in social and economic transformation in developing countries, and its work spans all geographic regions.

This lecture by Ashwani Muthoo will specifically highlight the opportunities and challenges of how smallholder agriculture and rural development is critical for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. He will touch upon themes such as climate change, promotion of gender equality, improvements in agricultural production and productivity, access to markets, private sector development, and related topics. He will also underline the importance of ex-ante quality assurance and evaluations of policies, strategies and operations for enhanced results and sustainability of benefits. 

Biography

Ashwani K. Muthoo is the Director of the Quality Assurance Group in the Office of the President and Vice President at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).  Ashwani has been recently appointed by the Board of Directors of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), as the first Director General of the Independent Evaluation Office of the NDB at their headquarters in Shanghai. Ashwani will take up his new role on 18 April 2022, reporting directly and exclusively to the Bank’s Board of Directors.

He has around 30 years of professional and managerial experience, focusing on global policies, country strategies, development projects and programmes, evaluation, and issues in the agricultural and rural sectors. His work experience covers more than 50 developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Near East and North Africa regions.

He was previously Director of the Global Engagement and Multilateral Relations Division and Director of the Global Engagement, Knowledge and Strategy Division. In these roles, an important part of his responsibilities included South-South and Triangular Cooperation work. He also served as Deputy Director in the Independent Office of Evaluation (IOE) of IFAD.

Ashwani Muthoo has a Master's degree in Data Engineering and a Bachelors with Honors in Management and Computer Science, from Keele University. He is fluent in English, Hindi, Italian, and Portuguese, and has some knowledge of French and Spanish.

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