Alberto Giani

Background

About Alberto Giani

Alberto is a rural development expert with a degree in Veterinary Medicine (DVM) an MSc in Organic Agriculture and over 25 years of experience in sustainable agri-food systems in rural and urban areas in Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia. He is Italian and speaks English, Portuguese and Spanish (and a bit of French). Next to providing technical inputs, he worked as a PM in charge of financial/activity planning, M&E, HRM, R&D, institutional networks, capacity building and training. He has been working both independently and in large teams, being able to perform well in both circumstances. His main areas of interest are sustainable agri-food systems and how those link with food security, resilience, poverty alleviation, policies and private sector. This also encompasses cross-cutting issues like urbanization, rural-urban linkages, circular economy, innovation, agribusiness incubators and start-ups, climate change, multi-stakeholder processes and value chain analysis and development. When implementing a project he always looks at it in a holistic way, as a complex system of interdependent elements and tries to find connections with similar activities in the area. He easily communicates with team members, partners and the governmental institutions to build synergies among different stakeholders. He started his career as a private vet for dairy farmers in Italy, then moved to Kenya as the Dairy Manager of a big private farm. Later he worked with development and aid agencies in the Global South. He spent 4 years at WageningenUR organizing and giving short courses for professionals on sustainable agri-food systems and doing consultancies in Africa and Asia. In 2017-2020 he worked for FAO-ET on resilience and pastoralists and on Urban Agriculture in Addis. He developed an innovative model called livestock business hub that focus on linking the urban (the medium cities) and the rural (the pastoralists ), add value to local products locally, create jobs, stimulate the local economy and improve the environment by utilizing a circular economy approach from the early stages. Presently he is in charge of the agricultural sector for the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation in Mozambique developing and coordinating its strategy in Beira Corridor with different partners creating sinergis between the local Ministry of Agrigulture, FAO, UNIDO and WFP. Current AICS budget for the agricultural sector in Mozambique is close to 100 million Euro. Alberto is also a Professional Gelatiere (Italian Ice Cream Maker)