Johan Swinnen became director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in January 2020 and managing director, systems transformation, CGIAR, in July 2022. He is a Commissioner in the Food Systems Economics Commission; Co-Chair of the Think20 (T20) Task Force on Climate Change, Sustainable Energy, and Environment; and also a member of the Champions 12.3 Leadership Group to Reduce Food Loss and Waste (SDG Target 12.3) and of the Africa Europe Strategic Task Force on Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems. Prior to joining IFPRI, Dr. Swinnen was professor of economics and director of the LICOS Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance at KU Leuven (Belgium) and senior research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels.
Dr. Swinnen was a lead economist at the World Bank from 2003 to 2004 and economic adviser to the European Commission from 1998 to 2001. Over the course of his career, Dr. Swinnen has been a visiting professor at various universities, including at Stanford University’s Center on Food Security and the Environment, and a frequent adviser to institutions such as the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Dr. Swinnen earned his PhD from Cornell University (USA) and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Göttingen (Germany) and the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra (Slovakia). He is a fellow of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association and the European Association of Agricultural Economists, and he served as president of the International Association of Agricultural Economists from 2012 to 2015.