Francisco López is a journalist, lawyer and political analyst and holds a master’s degree in communication and education. He is currently serving at the Secretariat of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture where he has been coordinating the planning and the production of official documents for the regular sessions of the Governing Body since 2007.

He jointed FAO in 2002 and he has worked as information officer in the Knowledge Exchange and Communication Department and in Right to Food Unit of the Economic and Social Development Department. He has occupied several positions in the Research and Extension Unit of FAO and coordinated numerous technology transfer projects in direct support of food security in Honduras, Costa Rica and Uganda, among other countries.

Before joining FAO, he worked for the Spanish News Agency EFE in Rome and in Madrid as well as for COAG, a farmers’ organization of Spain. He has written several papers on food security, poverty alleviation and technology transfer for smallholders and more recently he has co-edited the publication “Plant Genetic Resources and Food Security: Stakeholder Perspectives on the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture”.