Rose WANZIE

Ms. Rose Wanzie is an agriculture and food security expert with more than 20 years of experience in development programs in Africa, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte D’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Togo and Uganda. Ms. Wanzie has expertise across a broad spectrum of food security technical subjects, such as agriculture, agronomic and post-harvest technology transfer, value chain development, product development and market promotion of agricultural products, crop agronomy, producer group development, and extension services. In her most recent role as Extension and Advisory Services Team Leader on the $23 USAID-funded Feed the Future Guinea Agricultural Services project, she provided leadership in the development and implementation of activities related to information, extension, and advisory services for farmers to improve productivity and profitability of targeted value chains and improve nutrition in rural areas. As a Team Leader, Ms. Wanzie was responsible for coordinating with other members of the leadership team to ensure effective and integrated activities throughout the program. Prior to this role, Ms. Wanzie worked as an independent consultant for a range of clients emphasizing smallholder productivity and market access to improve competitiveness and inclusiveness of target value chains in Cameroon. She supported the revision and development of technical assistance strategies and plans to improve agriculture practices aimed at improving food and nutrition security, resilience and livelihoods, and value chain competitiveness. From July 2011 until December 2013, Ms. Wanzie worked with she was the Regional Programme Officer for the Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) where she oversaw the development and implementation of an extension program to reduce post-harvest food loss and improve agro-processing in Mali, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Uganda. She also led the successful start-up of the program and managed the four Country Teams and partners to implement appropriate and innovative post-harvest program and a postharvest advocacy strategy in each country. Ms. Wanzie was the Regional Value Chain Leader/Coordinator – West Africa for the $16.9 million USAID ATP program from June 2008 – June 2011 where she provided technical and advisory leadership and vision for all aspects of the maize value chain across eight West African countries with primary objective to improve the enabling policy environment for regional trade; enhance the integration and competitiveness of regional value chains; and increase food security in the region by increasing the value and volume of intra-regional agricultural trade. Ms. Wanzie holds a Master’s of Science in Tropical Agricultural Development, Crop Production from University of Reading, UK and a Bachelor’s of Science in Natural Sciences Botany from the University of Yaoundé. She is fluent in French and English.