Jason Hickel is an anthropologist at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He works on globalisation, development, and economic policy as it affects the global South, and primarily southern Africa, where he is originally from. In addition to his academic research, Jason also contributes to Al Jazeera, Le Monde Diplomatique, Global Policy, Monthly Review, The Africa Report and The Guardian. Last month he wrote a widely quoted and commented piece in The Guardian ‘Why the new sustainable development goals won’t make the world a better place.

Dr. John Mutunga is CEO of the Kenya National Farmers’ Federation, a members run organisation that represents the interests of over two million farming households in his country. An international development policies advisor, a development leader, and agribusiness and environmental researcher, Dr. Mutunga is a Board member to several national, sub regional, regional and global agricultural research, academic and development bodies. He is also a reviewer of journals, accomplished researcher and consultant in International Development and part time university lecturer in agribusiness and environmental studies among others.

Kalongo Chitengi has been country director with Self Help Africa in Zambia for more than six years, and is in charge of the organisation’s largest agricultural programme in southern Africa. Her MBA dissertation, published in 2012, was on “The Self Help Africa Farming as a Business Model – A Gender Perspective.

Dr. Benjamin Davis is a Senior Economist with FAO and team leader of PtoP, UN FAO’s From Protection to Production project, which is a multi-country impact evaluation of cash transfers in sub-Saharan Africa. He has served as Social Policy Advisor for the UNICEF Regional Office in Eastern and Southern Africa and as a Research and Post Doctoral Fellow at IFPRI. He holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics from UC Berkeley.