Christopher Delgado

Background and Education

Christopher Delgado splits his time as Senior Fellow at the World Resources Institute, working on whole landscape restoration in Africa and Latin America, and advising the new African Agricultural Policy Unit of the World Bank.  Through 2015, he was full-time at WRI, working on land use for the multi-institute, multi-country New Climate Economy Project.

He was previously Policy Advisor for Agriculture at the World Bank, led the Secretariat of the Bank’s Global Food Crisis Response Program (GFRP) launched in 2008, and participated in the agricultural discussions of the G20 from 2010 to 2012. GFRP provided over $1 billion in emergency assistance and investment to the poorest countries, with a record average time of 3 months from first concept to starting disbursement.  He also led the billion dollar plus Global Agricultural Food Security Program, supported by 9 countries and foundations, from start-up until late 2012. GAFSP is a transparent mechanism governed by its donors, recipients, and civil society, providing grants to long-term, peer reviewed, and strategic investment programs in agriculture and nutrition.

Previous to the World Bank, Chris spent 26 years at the International Food and Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the last 3 of these jointly as Markets Theme Director at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi. His work was mainly in Asia and Africa.  He holds a PhD in Economics from Cornell University, is a former Peace Corps Volunteer (Chad), researcher (University of Michigan), and part-time teacher (Johns Hopkins SAIS and the University of Ouagadougou).  He has published extensively in book and peer-reviewed article format in several languages.