Lindiwe Majele Sibanda

Lindiwe Sibanda Majele is a Zimbabwean academic and a researcher in African agricultural policy. She is the Chief Executive Officer of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), an inter-organization to promote agriculture on the continent.

She obtained a postgraduate scholarship to the University of Alexandria, where she obtained a Bachelor of Science and then continued her studies at the University of Reading, where she obtained a Masters and a PhD after defending a thesis on goat breeding in Matabeleland. She then was a researcher in the Department of Animal Production of the University of Zimbabwe, where she led an experimental study of a group consisting of multiparous goats accustomed to outdoor life and free grazing that have been put in barn and fed pre-cut hay. This study highlighted the low adaptation of goats in a confined and stall feeding. She is also responsible for a cattle operation.

Since 2004, she is general manager and head of mission of the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) in Pretoria. This organization was created at the initiative of eight African countries in 1997, with a view to promote the development of appropriate farming to fight against poverty and to improve African agricultural self-sufficiency.

She is in charge of research policy and support programs of food policy on the African continent, with a view to ensuring food security in the countries concerned. In 2012, she again was named board chair of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

She is a member of the Panel of Montpellier, a group of African and European experts who express themselves in the fields of agriculture, trade, ecology and development, advocating in particular measures to fight against the impact of climate change on the economies of African countries, and requesting substantial investment to avoid shortages or price increases of food, an increase in child malnutrition, migration, and impoverishment.

She won the 2013 Yara Prize, shared with Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu (Nigeria). This award, established in 2005, distinguished personalities whose contribution to the sustainable development of agriculture and food and nutrition security in Africa is significant.

• Sepo Hachigonta, Gerald C. Nelson, Timothy S. Thomas, Lindiwe Majele Sibanda Southern African Agriculture and Climate Change: A Comprehensive Analysis, International Food Policy Research Institute, 2013, ISBN 9780896298309
• Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, Fred Kalibwani, Tendayi Kureya, Silent Hunger: Policy Options for Effective Responses to the Impact of HIV and AIDS on Agriculture and Food Security in the SADC Region, 2006, ISBN 9780797433427