Jean Claude Rubyogo is the Leader of the Bean Programme and Director of PABRA at the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (ABC). For more than 30 years, he has focused on impactful seed systems research and development, technology delivery systems, and commercialization of bean research products.  For the last 20 years, he has been the PABRA seed systems specialist and has led multi-country public-private partnership initiatives and multi-disciplinary teams developing and deploying sustainable and impact-oriented bean seed systems and complementary management in several member countries of the Pan Africa Bean Research Alliance (see http://www.pabra-africa.org). 

Stephen Walsh is an agriculture advisor with USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Affairs, formerly Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). He has been privileged to work collaboratively with research and development colleagues at national and local levels to develop and implement, research, and advise on impact-oriented seed systems—for both true seed and vegetative propagated crops—for smallholder farmers in more than a dozen countries in sub-Saharan Africa. His seed system interest areas include how to build more responsive demand-driven seed systems, promoting private sector engagement with an emphasis on small and informal sector actors, and strengthening the analytic tools and capacity of practitioners to better understand and design seed systems interventions.   

Jules Keane is an independent consultant with over 20 years’ experience in international development in both Africa and Asia. Having fulfilled operational, management, and technical roles, she brings a systems-thinking approach to all her endeavors. She has led, managed and advised food security projects, including both cash transfer and seed security projects. She is particularly interested in applying market-based approaches in humanitarian contexts and resilience-focused programming initiatives. She earned a Master’s in Science in International Agricultural Development from University of California-Davis and a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Stanford University.

Kate Longley currently leads the Humanitarian Aid and Resilience portfolio within the Supporting Seed Systems for Development (S34D) Activity. S34D is a five-year Leader with Associates Award, funded by the Feed the Future initiative through the Bureau for Resilience and Food Security and by USAID through the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). S34D seeks to improve the capacity, collaboration and coordination of formal, informal and emergency seed sectors for improved functioning of national seed systems in focal countries. Kate Longley is a rural livelihoods and food security expert with over 25 years’ experience of research and development in both humanitarian and development contexts.