Harry Palmier recently joined the GFAR Executive Secretariat as Senior Partnerships Expert under a secondment from the French Institute for Research on Development (IRD). Harry, a native of Guadeloupe, has a PhD in International Public Law and Development from the University of Paris 1Pantheon/Sorbonne and a background in Economics. He has a long standing involvement in agricultural research management and multilateral development.
Harry was Head of the External Relations Department at IRD and served as Deputy Director for International Relations in CIRAD Department on Annual Crops before being assigned to the World Bank as an Institutional Development Specialist in the Special Program for African Agricultural Research (SPAAR) and Project Manager in the Department for Environment and Rural Development (SDNVP) from 1995 to 2002. He contributed to the World Bank strategy to of strengthening sub-regional research organizations (ASARECA, CORAF, SADC/FANR) and revitalizing SSA programs which led to the creation of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA).
Following his work with SPAAR, he was assigned to take on IRD relations in R&D with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and multilateral organizations including FAO, The World Bank and UNDP. He was a member of the Steering Committee of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) and involved in the UN Conference to Combat Desertification.
More recently, as Senior Institutional Development Officer in the CGIAR Secretariat and then the CGIAR Fund Office, Harry was focal point for the last three External Reviews (EPMRs) of ICRISAT, IRRI and Bioversity international. He participated in the World Bank Task Force which formulated the ARD Action Plan (2010-2012). Harry has also been actively involved in the Working Group on Partnerships and on Governance of the CGIAR Reform Process.
In the GFAR Secretariat, Harry now has specific responsibility for implementing the GCARD Road Map principles into practice, in regard to global and inter-regional partnership programmes, including those related to key research and advisory themes such as agrobiodiversity, linking farmers to markets, climate change and helping to strengthen partnerships between national & regional AR4D systems and the evolving new programmes of the CGIAR.