On Tuesday August 01, the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Spanish economist Alvaro Lario, announced, on July 31, the appointment of Rwandan Gerardine Mukeshimana as Vice-President of IFAD. She will take office on August 28
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is an international financial institution and a specialized agency of the United Nations whose mission is to support agricultural and rural development in developing countries. IFAD is headquartered in Rome, the United Nations’ focal point for food and agriculture. The institution is currently chaired by Spanish economist Alvaro Lario. Since 1978, IFAD has granted 23.2 billion USD in the form of low-interest loans and grants.
Gerardine Mukeshimana has held various positions in the education, agriculture and rural development sectors in Rwanda, and has conducted research in Africa, South America and the United States.
Prior to her appointment, Gerardine Mukeshimana had been Rwanda’s Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources since July 2014, responsible for overseeing all agriculture and livestock-related activities in the country. She was also in charge of formulating new policies, overseeing the implementation of existing policies, collaborating with other ministries and development partners on cross-cutting issues relating to the agricultural sector, in particular land use and management, trade, commerce, infrastructure, gender equality and youth employment.
Plant scientist
Gerardine Mukeshimana holds a PhD and a Master’s degree in plant breeding, genetics and biotechnology from Michigan State University, as well as a diploma in agricultural engineering from the National University of Rwanda. She has held various positions in the education, agriculture and rural development sectors in Rwanda, and has carried out research in Africa, South America and the USA.
Before being appointed Minister, Gerardine Mukeshimana was a plant scientist working at the Biosciences East and Central Africa/International Livestock Research Institute (BecA-ILRI) in Nairobi, Kenya. She specialized in the use of molecular virology, plant transformation, genomics and bioinformatics tools to develop strategies for controlling the spread of aphid-borne viral diseases in common bean. In this respect, she has received a grant from the Norman Borlaug Leadership Enhancement in Agriculture Program (Borlaug LEAP) for her essential contributions to common bean breeding. Indeed, thanks to her hard work in identifying key elements of the bean’s genetic make-up and developing a cost-effective method of screening for these elements, the bean has become more resistant to disease and drought.
This work on common bean was carried out as part of his PhD at Michigan State University, where his research focused on the genetics of common bean, Phaseolus vulgaris, to identify drought tolerance genes and traits. The common bean is an important crop for food and nutritional security in Rwanda, where per capita consumption of beans is the highest in the world. USAID’s Norman E. Borlaug Leadership Enhancement in Agriculture Program (LEAP) fellowship enabled her to spend three months at the CGIAR’s International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT-Colombia), where she benefited from research training and mentoring. In addition to tackling major obstacles to bean productivity in Rwanda, Gerardine Mukeshimana has acquired knowledge and skills in molecular genetics.
In 2012, the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development (BIFAD) recognized Gerardine Mukeshimana’s achievements with the prestigious 2012 BIFAD Award for Scientific Excellence under a USAID CRSP. This recognition is based on her contributions to Rwanda’s bean breeding program, notably the identification of drought tolerance genes and the development of a rapid and cost-effective method for screening for drought tolerance mechanisms.
Gerardine Mukeshimana has authored two scientific papers on drought tolerance in common bean, including “Quantitative Trait Loci Associated with Drought Tolerance in Common Bean” in Crop Science and “Identification of Shoot Traits Related to Drought Tolerance in Common Bean Seedlings” in the Journal of the American Society of Horticulture Science.
Gerardine Mukeshimana has also made a significant contribution to capacity building and resource mobilization to better support national agricultural research systems in Africa. Prior to this, Gerardine Mukeshimana worked at the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources of Rwanda, and was a lecturer at the Faculty of Agriculture of the National University of Rwanda.
