Vincent Gitz

Vincent Gitz is the director of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). An engineer graduate of Ecole Polytechnique in France, he holds a Ph.D. from AgroParisTech on land use and global climate policies, for which he was awarded the Le Monde prize for academic research. He has a background in earth sciences and natural resource and development economics. He previously worked in research for the Center for International Research on Environment and Development (CIRED) and the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) in policymaking, and at the interface between research and policymaking.

He also formerly served as advisor for sustainable development and research to the French agriculture and fisheries minister, Michel Barnier and as assistant-director for food policy at the French Ministry of Agriculture, Agrifood and Forests. He was coordinator of the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE), the science-policy interface of the U.N. Committee on World Food Security (CFS). He has published research in several fields related to sustainable development issues, from energy and development economics to earth and environmental sciences to nutrition.