2007 Tutu Fellow Ed Mabaya has been named Director of Cornell's Hubert H Humphrey Fellowship Program. The Fullbright exchange program provides accomplished professionals from countries with emerging economies an international enrichment opportunity in leadership and public service. The program at Cornell focuses on three areas of interest - agriculture, rural development, and natural resource management.
Ed has had a long and distinguished career in agricultural development and food security and most recently was the Associate Director at Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture, and Development.
He also managed roles in Applied Economics and was a Programme Facilitator at Making Markets Matter and was also a Research Professor in the Department of Global Development at Cornell. Ed's applied research revolves around food marketing and distribution, seed systems, digital agriculture, enabling environments for agribusiness and the role of efficient agricultural markets in Africa’s economic development
Sponsored by the US State Department and organized through the Institute of International Education, the Humphrey Program offers a specialized non-degree program that fosters leadership and training for mid-career professionals from around the world. Fellows are placed at one of 13 university campuses across the US. Cornell’s Fellows focus on overlapping areas of interest in agriculture, rural development and natural resource management. More than 400 professionals from 115 countries have taken part in the program at Cornell since it launched in 1980.
Ed will be succeeding Peter Gregory, who is retiring after serving as director for the past 10 years. He takes over the director position on 1 July 2022. He said he was excited to take on this new position that supports capacity development for professionals from developing and emerging economies. “I am a product of such investment, having come from Zimbabwe to Cornell for graduate studies in the mid-1990s.” From 2018-2020 Ed managed the Agribusiness Development Division of the African Development Bank. He led agribusiness development initiatives under the bank’s $24 billion feed Africa strategy, with his work dedicated to transforming African agriculture into a sustainable, inclusive and business-oriented sector that is globally competitive and able to cover the food needs across the continent.
Read the announcement at the Cornell University website.
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