Keynote Speaker

Biography

The Board of Directors of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa, during its 31st Ordinary session, held March 1-3 at the Lancaster Hotel Accra, Ghana, performed one of the key statutory functions of the Board in conducting the successful appointment process of the next Executive Director of FARA. The process was flagged off by the constitution of the Recruitment Advisory Committee (RAC) and endorsed by the Board of Directors at its 29th Ordinary Session with the competitive recruitment of a Search Firm that has meticulously facilitated the recruitment process. At the close of its 31st Session, the Board is happy to announce the appointment of Dr Aggrey AGUMYA as the next Executive Director of FARA pending ratification by the General Assembly in June 2023.

Aggrey Agumya, a Ugandan national, will become the third Executive Director and Head of Mission of FARA coming after Monty P Jones and Yemi Akinbamijo. An alumnus of the University of Melbourne, Aggrey holds a doctorate degree in Geo-Information Sciences. He comes to this exciting position at such a momentous period in the evolution of FARA. Dr Agumya has been a part of the FARA story for the last 17 years when he joined the Secretariat as a Programme Officer of the sub-Saharan Africa Challenge Programme (SSA-CP), a well-recognized continental Flagship programme of FARA. Thereafter, he served in key programme and leadership positions in FARA, including as Technical Advisor to the two Executive Directors. In 2020, Aggrey was appointed as the Director of Research and Innovation at the Secretariat, where he also serves as the de facto Deputy Executive Director.

It is noteworthy that Dr Agumya has been closely associated with most of the significant achievements of FARA, wherein he has served at the Director level for half as long as he has been a staff of FARA. Aggrey comes ready with an intimate understanding of the context, configurations, corporate philosophy and partnerships of the agriculture research and innovation institutions in Africa.