Professor Frans Swanepoel (61) is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria (UP) in South Africa (SA). His research focuses on Agricultural Transformation in Africa (ATA). He is co-principal investigator (PI) for food governance and systems of the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Food Security. He is PI of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) UKRI-GCRF Food Systems Research Network for Africa (FSNet-Africa). FSNet-Africa is a flagship programme under the ARUA-CoE in Sustainable Food Systems hosted by University of Pretoria (UP) in partnership with the Universities of Ghana, Legon, and Nairobi, Kenya. He also serves as Director: International Strategic Partnerships at (UP).
He has published extensively, with more than 170 journal articles, conference proceedings, book chapters, and reports. He has been chief-editor for three books; with the most recent published by Cambridge Scholars: Towards Impact and Resilience: Transformative Change in and through Agricultural Education and Training in Sub-Saharan Africa. He has supervised/co-supervised more than 40 research master’s and PhD students to completion, and regularly acts as external examiner worldwide.
Nationally, he is often engaged as advisor on sustainable agriculture and food and nutrition security. He has served, in various capacities, the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), and chaired the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) Consensus Study on Revitalising Agricultural Education and Training (AET); and as an expert on agricultural transformation and capacity development in Africa for the internationally funded development projects and activities for Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), and CGIAR. He has worked with FARA and NEPAD on the Science Agenda for African Agriculture, and led the development of a continental framework for Agriculture Education and Skills Development (AESIF). He was invited as the only South African participant to a high-level Rockefeller Bellagio Conference on Post-2015: MDGs Africa’s Response as well as to a follow-up Bellagio think-tank on the Urbanisation of Africa’s Food Systems.
During 2017-2018, he served on the task team of the Committee of 10 (C10) African Heads of State (HoS). Prof Swanepoel led the team who prepared the background paper for the first Rural Women’s Summit held in SA and established the first gender programme at the Postgraduate School of Agriculture and Rural Development at UP. He is appointed to the Steering Committee of the African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD, Gates Foundation); to the Board of Food Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN); to the Steering Committee of the Science Granting Council’s Initiative (SGCI) in Sub-Saharan Africa; Technical Committee of RUFORUM board; and Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) advisory board member.
Globally, he was invited as committee member to prepare the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) flagship Rural Development Report (RDR). The RDR-2021 edition will focus on Food Systems Transformation and will inform the 2021 United Nations (UN) Food Summit to be held in New York.
In addition, he has served, hosted, directed many conferences and forums such as International Conference on Sustainability Science (ICSS) of the University of Tokyo (March 2016); World Sustainability Forum 2017; the 3rd International Conference on Global Food Security; and the 2020 World Sustainability Forum.
He has worked as consultant and/or advisor for the FAO, USAID, AfDB, World Bank, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the World Conservation Union (IUCN).
During the past twenty years, Prof Swanepoel secured more than US$100 mill. from international funding sources, inter alia the WK Kellogg Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Mellon Foundation, IDRC and the MasterCard Foundation for his own research and to support research and development at Higher Education Institutions where he has worked, and now at (UP).
