Katherine Sierra: First Woman to Chair the
CGIAR
The CGIAR is pleased to announce that its 64 members have
unanimously endorsed the nomination of Katherine Sierra as their
new chair. She is the first woman to occupy this position.
Ms. Sierra is vice president of the World Bank's recently
formed Sustainable Development Network (SDN), of which agriculture
is an integral component. She succeeds Ian Johnson, who was Bank
vice president for Environment and Socially Sustainable Development
(ESSD) from 1998 until July of this year.
Ms. Sierra has had a long and distinguished career with the
World Bank. She worked extensively on transport and environmental
projects in Latin America and the Caribbean, and since the early
1990s has held a series of key management posts, including chief of
the Environment and Urban Development Division of the China and
Mongolia Department, vice president for human resources and vice
president for infrastructure.
In a recent message to CGIAR Members, Ms. Sierra said she felt
privileged to have been endorsed as the CGIAR's ninth chair,
and she underlined the critical importance of the CGIAR's
contribution to sustainable development. "I look forward to
working with all of you creatively and productively, and I count on
your collaboration and counsel," she said.
"The CGIAR has established an impressive reputation for
effectiveness as a catalyst in research for development. This
assessment is acknowledged far and wide, especially in those
countries where the results of the CGIAR-supported research have
made such a difference in the lives of the poor," she
added.
The Sustainable Development Network results from a merger,
called for by Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, between two previous
networks, ESSD and Infrastructure, for which Ms. Sierra served as
vice president, starting in 2004.
"Kathy has shown remarkable skill in orchestrating the
merger process, and she has gone about it in a thoroughly
consultative manner," said CGIAR Director Francisco
Reifschneider. "This bodes well for us in the CGIAR, since
ours is, by definition, a consultative organization, which can only
profit from Kathy's open and collaborative leadership
style."
Under Kathy's guidance, the CGIAR will also benefit from
close ties with the varied group of global programs encompassed by
the SDN," Reifschneider added. These include agriculture and
rural development, science and technology policy, natural resource
management and social development as well as transport, energy,
urban policies and others.
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