People

Edith has over 28 years of international experience in development, research, and advanced program/project management in agriculture, climate change and ICTs for development. She is currently a Regional Principal Officer, and AAAP Coordinator at the African Development Bank Group. She leads the Bank’s climate change and green growth mainstreaming work in Anglophone West Africa and is the coordinator of the flagship Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP). The AAAP is a $25 billion partnership program aimed at scaling up and accelerating climate change adaptation actions across Africa.

Prior to joining the Bank, Edith worked with Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) for 22 years in increasingly senior positions in the fields of climate change, agriculture, and ICTs for development. She was the Team Leader of IDRC’s flagship ACACIA Program, a multi-million-dollar initiative that pioneered research in Africa on the transformative effects of ICTs in key development sectors including, agriculture, environment/climate change, governance, health, education, poverty reduction, gender, and the economic empowerment of women. Before joining IDRC, Edith worked as a Senior Agricultural Officer with the Ministry of Agriculture in Kenya. Her work at the Ministry was instrumental in improving food security for populations in arid and semi-arid regions of Kenya. She contributed to the elaboration of Kenya’s national wetlands policy and the national irrigation, drainage and water harvesting strategy, which guided irrigated agricultural development in the country.

An agricultural scientist and economist by training, Edith’s work has had significant impact on policy change – she is passionate about using scientific evidence to shape policy and realize tangible impact at the grass-root level. One such initiative is the Climate Change Adaptation and ICT (CHAI) project in Uganda which received a United Nations Global Award for its innovative solution, providing climate information services and digital agricultural advisories to farmers at the frontline. Edith is a respected thought leader who played a key role in contributing to the body of knowledge on the linkages between climate change and technology (ICTs) in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. She co-authored several books including Application of ICTs for Climate Change Adaptation in the Water Sector: Developing Country Experiences and Emerging Research Priorities; ICT Pathways to Poverty Reduction; Gender and the Information Revolution in Africa. She holds an MSc in Agricultural Economics; BSc in Agriculture from the University of Nairobi; and executive certificate in leadership from Harvard University.

Edith has held various leadership and board-level positions in Kenya and abroad. She was appointed by H.E. The President of Kenya as the first Vice Chair of the board of Meru University of Science & Technology (2012-2015) and served, for two years, as Chair of the Audit Committee where she strengthened governance, accountability, and transparency at the University. Her 9-year tenure at the University saw various transformative initiatives implemented including broadband digitization of the University. She has also served as a member of the G8 DotForce Working Committee; UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Gender Working Group; International Steering Committee of UN Environment’s flagship Report “Climate Adaptation Gap Report” (2017-2021); and the World Adaptation Science Program (WASP).