Learning and Adapting during COVID-19 Series | Webinar 5: How Can Markets Improve Resilience?
Date
Across the globe, agricultural market systems support farmers, consumers, and a wide range of other actors during normal times, but when hit with shocks such as COVID-19, markets need to adapt. The ability to adapt in an inclusive and competitive manner not only makes a market system resilient, but also helps both producers and consumers weather shocks and bounce back better. As development practitioners, how can we leverage market systems as part of our response to COVID-19?
Please join us to hear from USAID about how market systems programming can help speed up recovery from crises, while learning from ongoing research in Senegal that analyzes how farmer networks have adapted in response to COVID-19. Finally, discover how a development program in Somalia is helping target private sector resilience capacities in addition to other economic growth outcomes.
View more from the "Learning and Adapting during COVID-19" series.
Watch the Webinar
Hear from our three panelists below. You can also download the presentations:
-
Mohamed Abdinoor: Somalia Growth, Enterprise, Employment, & Livelihoods Project
-
Annah Latane: Senegal Farmer Networks Respond to COVID-19
-
Kristin O'Planick: How Can Markets Improve Resilience
Mohamed Abdinoor, Chief of Party, USAID Somalia Growth, Enterprise, Employment, and Livelihoods Project
Mohamed Abdinoor is an international development professional with over 20 years of work experience. Mr. Abdinoor has gained expertise in economic development in several countries in the Horn of Africa, and currently leads the USAID-funded Somalia Growth, Enterprise, Employment and Livelihoods (GEEL) project. Somalia GEEL promotes inclusive economic growth in Somalia, which is recovering from the devastating effects of civil war. The project focuses on private-sector opportunities in agriculture, livestock, fisheries, and energy.
Mr. Abdinoor joined RTI in 2015. Previously, he led a team working on pastoralists and livestock programs in the Economic Growth and Transformation Office for USAID Ethiopia. He worked on similar programs for Save the Children, serving as chief of party for the Pastoralists and Livelihoods Initiative. He holds a master’s degree in international development and bachelor’s degree in environment and natural resources, and speaks fluent English, Somali, Swahili; and basic Amharic, Oromiffa, and Arabic.
Annah Latane, Food Security and Agriculture Specialist, RTI International
Annah Latane specializes in economic analyses of the international food security and agriculture sector. She combines expertise in statistics, monitoring and evaluation, and technical communication with an understanding of current factors affecting agricultural development throughout the world.
Ms. Latane joined RTI in 2014 as an economist. She played a key role in YieldWise, a Rockefeller Foundation initiative to reduce post-harvest losses in Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania. She also provided technical assistance to the USAID-funded Local Enterprise and Value Chain Enhancement (LEVE) project in Haiti as well as the Feed the Future Senegal Naatal Mbay program. Previously, she worked on projects involving air quality, watershed protection, renewable fuels, and other aspects of climate-smart agriculture.
Kristin O'Planick, Market Systems Specialist, USAID Bureau for Resilience and Food Security
Kristin O'Planick is a Market Systems Specialist in USAID's Bureau for Resilience and Food Security where she seeks to advance market systems facilitation throughout the Feed the Future portfolio and manages the Feed the Future Market Systems & Partnerships Activity. Previously, in USAID’s Bureau for Economic Growth, Education, & Environment, she assisted market systems, enterprise development, and youth employment programs. With two decades of international development experience across all geographic regions, Ms. O'Planick has worked in a variety of technical areas including market systems, enterprise and livelihoods development, workforce, food security, agribusiness, rural finance, and sustainable tourism. Ms. O'Planick served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guinea, and earned her MBA with distinction from the Johnson School at Cornell University.
Tracy Slaybaugh-Mitchell, Senior Resilience and Food Security Advisor, RTI International
Tracy Mitchell is an agricultural expert focused on building resilience and food security. She has more than 25 years of experience in international development, having served as Chief of Party and provided technical assistance to USAID- and USDA-funded economic growth and poverty-reduction development programs in Africa and the former Soviet Union. Currently, Ms. Mitchell leads RTI’s resilience practice and bolsters resilience programming in current projects, incorporates resilience in the design of new projects, and provides thought leadership that integrates resilience across RTI’s divisions.
Ms. Mitchell came to RTI in 2019 from DAI, where she helped develop the institutional architecture for resilience for the South Sudan Mission and supported programs in crop and livestock value chains. Prior to joining DAI, she was the Chief of Party for a large USAID Food for Peace program in Karamoja, Uganda. Her background also includes positions and consulting roles with Mercy Corps and CNFA, as well as international and domestic work in economic growth, agricultural production and business development. She started her career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia.