IATP is proud to announce the election of two new members to its board of directors, Firoze Manji and Daniel De La Torre Ugarte.
Firoze Manji is a leading African intellectual and activist. He is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Pambazuka News and Pambazuka Press, and the founder and former executive director (1997–2010) of Fahamu – Networks for Social Justice. He has published widely on health, social policy, human rights and political sciences, and authored and edited a wide range of books on social justice in Africa, including on women’s rights, trade justice, China’s role in Africa and more on the recent uprisings in Africa. In March of 2013 Firoze moved to Dakar to be head of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) documentation and information center. He shares IATP’s vision of a world in which the global commons is protected, corporate control is dismantled, and agriculture, food and energy systems are decentralized and democratized. He is the first IATP board member from Africa, and we are grateful to have his keen analytic mind in helping shape IATP’s direction.
Dr. Daniel De La Torre Ugarte, a longtime friend and ally of IATP, has been one the nation’s strongest proponents of agriculture policy which benefits farmers, the land, the environment and public health. He is a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics of the University of Tennessee, where he is also the associate director of the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center. Originally from Peru, where he earned a degree in economics, he went on to earn a Ph.D. in agricultural economics at Oklahoma State University in 1992. Dr. De La Torre's primary areas of research have been the impacts of U.S. agricultural policy; the consequences of trade liberalization in agriculture; the feasibility of international supply management in agriculture; and the synergism of agricultural and energy policy in reducing poverty and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. He is engaged in international dialogues to develop mechanisms that would allow agricultural trade to contribute to global food security and sustainable economic development. Daniel has recently returned to his native Peru, where he will be consulting with the government in addition to continuing his work in academia.
