Roundtable on Resilience and Market Systems

Event Information
How can the international development community come together to make market systems more resilient? Please join us on July 10 as we engage in a roundtable discussion about the intersection of resilience and market systems. Led by Greg Collins, director of the USAID Center for Resilience, our panel of experts will present perspectives developed through their research and writing on ways in which resilience can be assessed at the level of market systems. Organized and hosted by Chemonics International, the roundtable aims to highlight recent research and experience while sharing learning with the broader development and research communities. Sub-topics will include resilience of households, communities, agricultural value chains, and regional commodity markets. A discussion will follow brief presentations by the panelists.
The event will be held in the Northwest Rotunda of the Ronald Reagan Building, and will be livestreamed. Refreshments will be served after the event.
Speakers
Greg Collins

Director
USAID Center for Resilience
Greg Collins is the Director of the USAID Center for Resilience and serves as the Agency's Resilience Coordinator. Collins is a recognized global thought leader on resilience and has played a lead role in developing and operationalizing a strategic vision for resilience at USAID. Collins was based in Kenya during the 2011 drought emergency there and helped lead the development of USAID's Horn of Africa resilience strategy in 2012. He also helped lead the development of USAID's Sahel resilience strategy in 2012-13. He continues to provide strategic guidance and technical support on resilience to missions in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, including the Agency flagship resilience portfolios in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Nepal. Prior to coming to USAID in 2010, Collins worked for more than a decade as a strategy and technical advisor on food security, monitoring and evaluation, and vulnerability assessment and analysis to various UN agencies (FAO, WFP, UNICEF) and NGOs in east and southern Africa and the Middle East. Collins holds an MPH from Tulane University with a specialization in food security and monitoring and evaluation, and a PhD in Economic Sociology from the University of California Davis where his research explored Somalia's telecommunications industry as an instance of development (and resilience) "without state."
Tanya Boudreau

Founding Member
Food Economy Group
Tanya Boudreau is a founding member of the Food Economy Group. She established and helped institutionalize the first operational Household Economy assessment and monitoring system in East Africa for Operation Lifeline Sudan in 1994 and has led HEA assessments throughout Africa and Asia, specializing in conflict-prone and pastoralist areas in Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Southern Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Pakistan. Ms. Boudreau was a senior advisor to USAID's Famine Early Warning System (FEWS NET) for over 10 years, and brings a unique perspective gained from a combination of extensive field experience and headquarter-level engagement. Her particular areas of expertise are in the fields of livelihoods analysis, Disaster Risk Reduction, and famine and food security early warning system design.
Ryan Vroegindewey

Surge Response Officer
Food for Peace
Ryan Vroegindewey is a Surge Response Officer at Food for Peace. He is also a PhD candidate in the Department of Community Sustainability at Michigan State University (MSU), and holds an M.S. degree in Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics from MSU. His research has focused on the development of agribusiness, agricultural value chains, and food markets in the Sahel region. Previously, he worked in West Africa, assisting processors and farmers as an agribusinesses advisor with Peace Corps, and helping to design and monitor market development and food assistance programs for USAID.
Gabriela Alcaraz

Rural Development Expert
Chemonics International
Gabriela Alcaraz is a rural development expert and analyst focusing on issues related to food security, agriculture, poverty reduction, and development policy at Chemonics International. Ms. Alcaraz has more than ten years of experience gathering and analyzing data on food and nutrition security for urban and rural populations. She currently serves as the senior markets and trade analyst for the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) project. Ms. Alcaraz has authored and co-authored several publications. She holds a PhD in agriculture and agricultural economics and social sciences; a M.S. in tropical and international agriculture/socioeconomics of rural development; and a B.S. in agricultural engineering.