Namukolo Covic (Zambia) is ILRI Director General’s Representative to Ethiopia, CGIAR Ethiopia Country Convenor, and CGIAR Regional Director for East and Southern Africa. She has served as a Senior Research Coordinator at the IFPRI on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) in different African countries.

Her extensive experience straddles the interface of policy, dynamics of agriculture and food systems, and related interventions. She has been involved in numerous activities, collaborating
with national governments, regional and continental bodies, and various non-state actors to drive food systems transformation and nutrition initiatives.

Namukolo has worked extensively with the government of Ethiopia and other stakeholders on different fronts of food systems and nutrition, including the development of food-based dietary
guidelines and their adaptation to pastoralist settings, and the development of Ethiopia’s food systems transformation pathway. She has supported the African Union’s efforts to link agriculture and nutrition in the Africa Union – Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) .

She leads the Governance Working Group of an Independent Expert Group that emerged from the UNFSS.