For the past decade, Agnes Kalibata has led AGRA with one focus: Every individual farmer matters.
“When people come to you and they tell you, ‘Oh, we are doing this experiment with 10,000 farmers,’ that was not going to work with me,” she said in an interview with Devex. She thinks on a much larger scale, in terms of resources and tools that will improve millions of farmers’ individual livelihoods and the whole continent’s economy.
The Nairobi-based organization is hugely influential in setting African agricultural policy. AGRA has grown significantly under Kalibata’s leadership, tripling its staff to 300 with offices in 15 countries from two when she first began. Its tiny annual budget has ballooned to nearly $1 billion today, with donors such as the Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
About the author
Tania Karas@TaniaKaras
Tania Karas is a Senior Editor at Devex, where she edits coverage on global development and humanitarian aid in the Americas. Previously, she managed the digital team for The World, where she oversaw content production for the website, podcast, newsletter, and social media platforms. Tania also spent three years as a foreign correspondent in Greece, Turkey, and Lebanon, covering the Syrian refugee crisis and European politics. She started her career as a staff reporter for the New York Law Journal, covering immigration and access to justice.
