Dr. Joachim Voss has been appointed as the next director general of the International
Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), based in Cali, Colombia, by decision of the
Center's Board of Trustees. Voss will take up the position in May 2000.An experienced
and widely respected research manager, Voss, 52, has a demonstrated capacity to lead teams
of natural and social scientists in addressing the problems of small farmers, poor
consumers, and the environment in developing countries.
Currently, he is manager of the Research Division of Canada's International Development
Research Centre (IDRC), where he has
worked since 1988. His main responsibilities are to organize and lead problem-focused,
interdisciplinary teams working on natural resource management, the environment, and
information and communications.
"We are delighted to have someone of Dr. Voss's stature and experience," said
CIAT Board Chairman Dr. Fernando Chaparro. "He brings to us a wealth of experience in
international agricultural development, and he's thoroughly dedicated to the Center's
humanitarian mission."
"Joachim has an excellent grasp of research and development issues and realities
in Africa, Asia, and Latin America," said CIAT's interim director general Aart van
Schoonhoven. "He's well-prepared to lead CIAT in fulfilling its responsibilities both
as a regional and global research center."
Voss is well known at CIAT and in its sponsoring organization, the Consultative Group
on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).
From 1983 to 1988, Voss served CIAT as a Rockefeller Foundation postdoctoral fellow and
then as a senior scientist working on farming systems in Burundi, Rwanda, and Zaire.
During the past 5 years, while acting as IDRC's representative to the CGIAR, he has
acquired a detailed knowledge of the 16 centers supported by the Group and of their
donors.
Voss graduated in anthropology and geography from the University of Toronto, with a
focus on Community Development. He holds a Master's degree in Rural Sociology from the University of Guelph and received his
Ph.D. in economic anthropology from the University
of Toronto. Born in Germany, Voss is now a Canadian citizen. He speaks four languages:
German, Spanish, French, and English.
CIAT's new director general—the fifth since the Center's establishment in
1967—succeeds economist Dr. Grant M. Scobie, who resigned last September after more
than 4 years of dedicated service in leading the Center.
CIAT's mission is to reduce hunger and poverty in the tropics through collaborative
research that improves agricultural productivity and natural resource management. The
CGIAR is a global agricultural research network that works to achieve food security,
poverty eradication, and sound management of natural resources in the developing world.
CIAT and the other CGIAR centers support Future Harvest in building public understanding of the importance of
international agricultural research to global peace, prosperity, environmental renewal,
health, and alleviation of human suffering.
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