Aleppo, Syria. The Presentation Day guests who witnessed the handing over ceremony included ministers, ambassadors and other senior officials from the various diplomatic missions in Damascus and Aleppo, donor representatives, leaders of national agricultural research systems, former ICARDA board chairs and members, former ICARDA directors general, and media representatives.
“Guido has a wealth of knowledge of the CGIAR System and his wide leadership experience in non-profit research and development sectors makes him an ideal candidate to serve in this position,” said Dr Catley-Carlson. “He has the ability to look at agriculture in dry areas from both a global and community perspective – which is exactly in keeping with ICARDA’s strategy.”
Dr Gryseels, a national of Belgium, joined as a member of ICARDA Board of Trustees in 2003. Until he took over as Board Chair, he had been serving as a member of the Executive, Nomination and Program Committees of the Board.
Thanking the Board of Trustees and management of ICARDA for their trust in him, Dr Gryseels said he was committed to ICARDA’s noble mission of alleviating poverty and hunger in dry areas of the developing world, and he looked forward to further contributing to this mission, working with ICARDA and its partners.
An agricultural economist, Dr Gryseels is currently Director General of the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Federal Science Policy and of the Fund for Scientific Research in Belgium, and Chair of the Jury that annually awards the Development Cooperation Prize. Earlier, he served as Deputy Executive Secretary of the Technical Advisory Committee of the CGIAR, hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Italy. He also held other important positions in the CGIAR, including that of Executive Secretary of the CGIAR's Impact Assessment and Evaluation Group. From 1979 to 1987, he held various senior positions at the International Livestock Center for Africa, in Ethiopia.
The ICARDA Board of Trustees, senior management and staff wish Dr Gryseels every success in steering the Center forward in serving the poor farmers in dry areas of the developing world.
