Programme Manager. Resilience and Climate Change.
Delegation of the European Union to Zimbabwe
Giacomo Rambaldi is an independent consultant in the domains of digitalisation for agriculture participatory mapping and enterprise development. He has 41 years of professional experience in Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean where he worked for various international organizations including the Technical Centre for Agricultural & Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), FAO and as long-term consultant on projects funded by the Italian Aid to Development and the European Commission. He holds an honours degree in agricultural sciences from the State University of Milan, Italy.
He worked for 17 years at CTA as a member of the Digitalisation for Agriculture (D4Ag) team where he coordinated and administered a stream of activities related to the deployment of D4Ag in Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.
Alexandre Castellano.
Born in France on 16 May 1975.
Nationality: French and Italian
Education: MSc in Biology in Italy and MSc in Public Health Nutrition at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Position: from 2020 to date - DG ECHO Head of Office - Pretoria - South Africa - for the Southern Africa and Indian Ocean Region.
Previous positions: from 2000 to 2012 working with various NGOs dealing with emergencies and innovation technologies in seven African countries – from 2013 to 2016 policy officer with ECHO in the head quarter dealing with Food Assistance, Nutrition, Cash-Based Transfers and Innovations. From 2016 to 2020, ECHO Technical Assistant for the Southern Africa and Indian Ocean Region.
Key interest: Innovative Technologies applied to humanitarian response.
Trained Environmental Planner, Manager and Policy Analyst in Environmental Policy working at the interface of people-ecosystems' interactions. Thomas has developed and implemented innovative tools for managing people-ecosystems interactions such as REDD+, payments for ecosystem services, environmental impact assessments (EIAs), audits and Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs).
Currently forestry officer at FAO, working as regional coordinator for the Sustainable Wildlife Management Programme, I am based at the FAO sub-regional office of central Africa, in Libreville, Gabon. With a double qualification of doctor in veterinary medicine and PhD in tropical forest ecology, I have nearly 20 years of experience designing and managing field based projects and programmes in tropical forest regions, mostly in the Guiana shield and the Congo Basin. My areas of expertise cover the sustainable management of natural resources and biodiversity conservation, working with a variety of stakeholders going from rural communities and territorial authorities, to researchers and experts in various disciplines, as well as high-level decision makers in governmental and intergovernmental bodies. I am particularly interested in experiencing cross-sectoral approaches to maintain ecosystem health (such as the One Health approach), in developing mechanisms that can improve the governance of natural resources whether at field level or at national and international level, and in promoting evidence-based and participatory policy development approaches allowing the effective integration of scientific and traditional knowledge.
My Vision is simple; I want to see others succeed! I am a creative problem-solver who enjoys applying my gifts to help others live with less resistance, more efficiency, and greater effectiveness in all areas of their lives. I have a passion for Green Economies in which all people and the planet are valued. I hold a Master's in Business Administration and am a registered Global Chartered Management Accountant.