Johan Swinnen (economist)

Johan "Jo" Swinnen is the Director General of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a post he took up in January 2020. From July 2022 onwards, he also became the Managing Director of the Systems Transformation Science Group of CGIAR . He is known for his work on agricultural and food policies, political economy, institutional reforms, trade, and global value chains within the context of international development.

Education
Swinnen earned his Ph.D. in agricultural economics from Cornell University (USA) in 1992. He also holds honorary doctorates from the University of Göttingen (Germany) and the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra (Slovakia). His undergraduate degrees are from KU Leuven in Belgium.

Career
In 1992 he became Senior Economist at the Leuven Institute for Central and East European Studies and in 1993 assistant professor at KU Leuven. He joined the European Commission (DG Economics and Finance) from 1998 to 2001 as economic advisor – working on the preparations for the accession of ten Eastern European countries to the EU. He returned briefly to academia in 2002. From 2003 to 2004, Swinnen was an economist at the World Bank .

From 2004 until 2019, Swinnen was a professor of economics and the director of the LICOS Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance at KU Leuven (Belgium). During this period, he also was a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels.

Swinnen has been a visiting professor at various universities, including at Stanford University’s Center on Food Security and the Environment, and he served as an adviser to international institutions such as the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

He served on and led various professional committees and activities. Among those, he served as president of the International Association of Agricultural Economists from 2012 to 2015. Since 2020 he has served as both a commissioner in the Food Systems Economics Commission; and as a member of the Champions 12.3 Leadership Group to Reduce Food Loss and Waste (SDG Target 12.3). In September 2022, Swinnen was appointed as a member of the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid (ACVFA), USAID, which includes leading experts representing a range of sectors.

Publications
Swinnen has published numerous articles and 30 books. His body of work has been widely cited and received several awards. His books include:


 * Resnick, Danielle, ed.; and Swinnen, Johan, ed. 2023. The political economy of food system transformation: pathways to progress in a polarized world. Washington, DC; and Oxford, UK: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI); and Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198882121.001.0001
 * Swinnen, Johan; and McDermott, John. 2020. Covid‐19 and global food security. EuroChoices 19(3): 26-33. https://doi.org/10.1111/1746-692X.12288
 * Swinnen, Johan. 2021. The political economy of agricultural and food policies. In Agricultural development: new perspectives in a changing world, eds. Keijiro Otsuka and Shenggen Fan. Part Three: Context for Agricultural Development, Chapter 14, Pp. 471-502. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896293830_14
 * Swinnen, Johan. 2015. Quality standards, value chains and international development. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139198912
 * Rausser, G.; Swinnen, Johan; and Zusman, P. 2011. Political power and economic policy: theory and empirical applications. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511978661
 * Swinnen, Johan; and Rozelle, S. 2006. From Marx and Mao to the market: the economics and politics of agricultural transition. Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/0199288917.001.0001

Awards
Swinnen was elected Fellow of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) and the European Association of Agricultural Economists (EAAE) and Lifetime Honorary Member of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE). He was elected Mercator Fellow at the University of Gottingen between 2016 and 2018.

He was awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Göttingen (Germany) in 2017 and the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra (Slovakia) in 2012.

Awards for his publications include:


 * 2004 article with Scott Rozelle
 * 2009 article with Miet Maertens
 * 2014 article with Mara Squicciarini and Andrea Guariso
 * 2018 book The Political Economy of Agricultural and Food Policies received the Book Award from the European Association of Agricultural Economists (EAAE).
 * 2021 book Covid-19 and Global Food Security, received the Quality of Communication Award Award from the AAEA.