Professor Mamadou Goïta, Executive Director, Institute for Research and Promotion of Alternatives in Development, Mali. Professor Mamadou GOÏTA is a development socio-economist from Mali, a university teacher and researcher. He is the Executive Director of IRPAD/Afrique (Institute for Research and Promotion of Alternatives in Development) a ‘Think and Do Tank’ with scientific and academic status. He is a land specialist and a member of the regional coordinating committee of COPAGEN (Coalition to Protect African Genetic Heritage). Before joining IRPAD, he worked for UNICEF in Mali, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Togo and Burkina Faso and several international NGOs, including ACORD (Regional Director for West Africa and Africa Program Manager) and OXFAM-Belgium (regional coordinator for West Africa based in Burkina Faso). He is active in social movements and works with farmer organizations and their networks in Africa. He is a board member of (CSO) Coalition on African Development Bank, (DES) Diobass, Ecology and Society; (AMASSA), Association Malienne pour la Sécurité et la Souveraineté Alimentaire; USC Canada, ETC Group, and (PANiDMR) Pan African Network in the Defense of Migrants’ Rights). He works on various issues and contributed to many economic, social and socio-economic studies, researches and evaluation processes in Africa and other continents. He drafted various public policies in Mali and contributed to other policy processes in other African countries. He teaches at different universities in Dakar (Senegal), Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) in addition to Mali. He’s been course Director on “Natural resources management and Africa Development ” of the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) and Governance Institute Director of CODESRIA in 2014. He was the HLPE/CFS on “Investing in smallholder Agriculture” (2013) team member and currently a member of IPES-Food. He contributed to NELGA short course on “The Political Economy on Land Governance in Africa” in Accra.