DR HLAMALANI NGWENYA
Extension & Advisory Services Associate
Dr. Hlamalani Ngwenya is an Extension & Advisory Services Associate at FANRPAN with 30 years of work experience in the education, agriculture, and health sectors at national, regional, continental, and global levels. She has done assignments in over 46 countries (23 in Africa) and beyond and has been involved in process design, facilitation, and moderation of over 350 Multistakeholder engagements at Global, Continental, Regional, and national levels (including high-level policy dialogues, strategic planning sessions, tailored training, change management, and virtual webinars).
She holds a Ph.D. in Sustainable Agriculture (2019, University of Free State), specializing in the Facilitation of Systemic Change in the context of the transformation of agriculture extension services systems; Master of Consumer Sciences (2003) specializing in Community Nutrition: Honours Home Economics (1997, the then University of Potchefstroom).
DR TAMANI NKHONO-MVULA
Agricultural Policy & Institutional Reforms Associate
Dr. Tamani Nkhono-Mvula is an Agricultural Policy and Institutional Reforms Associate at FANRPAN. He is a development practitioner with 20 years of experience and expertise in agricultural policy and Development. Currently, he works as an Agricultural Policy and Institutional Reforms Advisor for the Millennium Challenge Corporation for Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho, and Mozambique. Previously, he has also worked as Chief of Party for the Inclusive Agriculture Development Program in Malawi, as a Technical Advisor in the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development in Malawi, and as the National Director of the Civil Society Agriculture Network among others.
Additionally, over the past 15 years, he has consulted for several international NGOs, the Government, USAID, the European Union, the World Bank, and the UN among other organizations on different topics of agricultural policy and rural development.
Dr. Tamani Nkhono-Mvula holds a Ph.D. in Development Studies obtained from the University of Malawi and his research interests are on institutionalism and agrarian transformation; MA in Development Studies from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex; a BSc in Agricultural Economics and a Diploma in Rural Development from the University of Malawi.
CHARLES DHEWA
Knowledge Management Associate
Charles Dhewa is a Knowledge Management Associate at FANRPAN. Charles has demonstrated extensive experience as an evaluator and a thought leader on African food systems, rural development, and indigenous knowledge systems.
At the international level, Charles is a Core Group member of the Knowledge Management for Development D-Group (www.km4dev.org) as well as communication and evaluation consultant under the IDRC-supported initiative known as Designing Evaluation & Communication for Impact (DECI) https://evaluationandcommunicationinpractice.net/
Among other qualifications, Charles holds a Master of Philosophy in Information and Knowledge Management from Stellenbosch University, South Africa). He is currently pursuing Ph.D. studies at the Knowledge, Technology, and Innovation (KTI) department, Wageningen University & Research (WUR) in The Netherlands, as part of a special cohort of PhDs-for-professionals.
MAUREEN WANG'ATI-GNAGBO
Monitoring and Evaluation Associate
Maureen Wang'ati-Gnagbo is a Monitoring and Evaluation Associate at FANRPAN. Maureen is multilingual with fluency in English, Fair knowledge of French, and good knowledge of Swahili.
Maureen has 25 years of experience in program monitoring and evaluation, 23 years in international development in APC countries, multi-country evaluation management and assessment in Sub-Saharan Africa, Northern Africa, Europe, America, South America, and Asia. Consult on behalf of high-level donors (EU/EC, DFID, DANIDA, WB, UN, USAID, NORAD, WORLD BANK country governments, and NGOs).
Maureen holds a Master of Education degree in Program Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation (PM& E), and she’s a member of the Founder African Evaluation Association (AFREA), PIMA-Net (Planning Implementation Measurement and Assessment Network), Evaluation Society of Kenya (ESK), American Evaluation Association (AEA), European Evaluation Society (EES) Africa Gender Evaluation Network (AGDEN).
SYLVESTER KWAME OSEI
Communications Associate
Sylvester Kwame Osei is a Communications Associate at FANRPAN. He’s responsible for implementing the communications strategy of FANRPAN and supporting communications on project implementations. Sylvester is passionate about agriculture, environmental sustainability, and the use of communications for development.
On the social front, Sylvester has organized various youth-led fora to educate on climate change and environmental awareness. Sylvester holds a Master of Science degree in Environmental Sustainability and Management.
DR. THULASIZWE MKHABELA
Agricultural Economics Associate
Thulasizwe Mkhabela is an Agricultural Economics Associate at FANRPAN. He is a graduate of the University of Cape Town (UCT), University of Swaziland (UNISWA- now Eswatini), and the University of Northwest, with BSc in Agriculture, MSc in Agriculture (Crop Sciences) and Post-Graduate Diploma in Economics. He holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Stellenbosch University. He taught at Stellenbosch University for over five years and is now a Senior Lecturer Extraordinaire.
He has worked for the National Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC) as a Senior Researcher, the KwaZulu Natal Agribusiness Development Agency (ADA) both as Acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Operations Officer (COO) for six years, and the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) as Group Executive: Impact & Partnerships for three (3) years. He is now an Independent Consultant and Managing Director at Outcome Mapping. He is a seasoned agricultural development consultant with extensive experience in the conceptualization, implementation, and evaluation of agricultural development initiatives and land reform projects. He is extensively involved in economic (especially agricultural development) policy and thought leadership alongside involvement in private equity investments in Africa.
Thulasizwe maintains a keen interest in public policy issues in agriculture and rural development and is proactively engaged in professional discourses related to the evolving socio-economic system worldwide, with particular interest and expertise in agribusiness and food systems. Recently, he has been involved in mining and agriculture through social transition and Social Labour Plans.
Thulasizwe has published extensively both in peer-reviewed scientific journals and popular publications. He has published more than 20 peer-reviewed journal papers and book chapters and has regular Thought Leadership (Op-Ed) columns in Independent Online syndicated newspapers (including Pretoria News, Cape Times, Natal Witness, etc.). He is also a recognized expert in agricultural economic issues and a speaker of note, having appeared on both national and international TV and radio stations as a guest expert speaker.
MS PAMELA MATYOLO
Programmes Associate
Pamela Matyolo is an Associate working for FANRPAN. Her primary responsibility in the organization includes providing support in the management/ Coordination and implementation of
FANRPAN projects, Resource Mobilization activities, monitoring and evaluation of projects, contributing to compiling research on Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) and Nutrition-sensitive
Agriculture (NSA), contributing to the development of policy briefs and providing support in producing project reports.
Pamela holds an MSc. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Fort Hare. During her
postgraduate, she presented research outputs at conferences and published papers and articles in journals and other publishing media houses. She has more than seven years of working in the FANR sector where she gained valuable skills and knowledge that is in agro-economic research, policy research, data analysis, and data interpretation to guide agriculture-related decision-making, among others. In addition to being highly computer-literate, she has also acquired advanced computer skills that she uses in coding and analyzing research data.
DR WOLE OLALEYE, PhD
Public Governance, Monitoring, and Evaluation Associate
With outstanding expertise in democratization, political parties, elections, public governance, performance monitoring, and evaluation, Dr. Wole offers 20 years of experience across a diverse range of international organizations. With a track record of exceptional performance as a democratic governance researcher, campaign director, and program manager, he delivers high-quality work at all times. Clients and colleagues recognize Wole for his report-writing skills, critical thinking, and strong analytical ability.
Dr. Wole holds a Ph.D. in Public Governance from the University of the Witwatersrand and an MPhil degree in Social Science Research Methodology from Stellenbosch University.
NELUHENI MADEMBE
Programmes Associate
Neluheni Madembe is a Programs Associate at FANRPAN. Madembe holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Nutrition from the University of Venda. Madembe has been supporting FANRPAN’s NSA programs focused on generating evidence to support agricultural transformation to ensure that it delivers positive nutrition outcomes.
She is currently pursuing a master of Public Health degree.
Walter Svinurai
Programmes Associate
Walter Svinurai is an animal scientist (PhD, University of Pretoria) with 12 years of experience in university teaching in Zimbabwe focusing on developing and facilitating undergraduate and postgraduate learning resource materials. His research is focused on the assessment of the sustainability of practices in tropical agroecosystems, particularly livestock using whole-farm, decision support systems and geospatial tools. Currently, he is a co-principal investigator of an Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) - funded project entitled Strengthening adaptive capacity of extensive livestock systems for food and nutrition security and low-emissions development in Eastern and Southern Africa (2023-2026), coordinated by FANRPAN in Zimbabwe. In the past 10 years, Walter contributed to community service by serving as a climate transparency expert responsible for compiling and reviewing the UNFCCC’s transparency reports such as agricultural greenhouse gas emission inventories and mitigation assessment reports for national communications and Zimbabwe’s Nationally Determined Contributions and, training agriculture sector experts about the methodologies and tools for transparency reporting in agriculture sector. Recently, he has been supporting the high-level engagement between the government of Zimbabwe and relevant livestock value-chain actors in developing the country’s advanced greenhouse gas inventory for the cattle sector. He also has experience in implementing national and regional climate change projects involving the facilitation of capacity-building workshops for fostering synergies among academia, government, and development organizations. Walter has been engaged with various regional and international organizations in promoting the exchange of country experiences in climate transparency processes and currently serves as the southern African regional representative of the Africa Climate Action Partnership Livestock Community of Practice’s core group responsible for convening stakeholders and facilitating science-policy dialogues.