MATTHESS, Dr. Annemarie

Dr Annemarie Matthess is agricultural economist graduated from Hohenheim University in Germany. She has over 30 years’ work experience as GIZ resident advisor and project manager in East, North and West Africa with focus on rural development, innovation systems, agricultural research management and private sector development in agriculture and animal production. As Senior Planning Officer of GIZ Division Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Annemarie supported programs in Africa, Latin America, and Central Asia in value chain promotion, strengthening of professional organizations in agriculture and agricultural innovation systems. She managed 3 sector projects in these fields. As co-author, trainer and founding member, she contributed to the GIZ-ValueLinks approach. She led the regional Programme Sustainable Smallholder Agri-Business (SSAB) from 2009 to 2019 operating in Cameroun, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo. With her team and African partners, she developed the Farmer Business School (FBS) approach, coordinated scaling-up to 480,000 cocoa producers, and established complementary services including cost-effective extension as well as private and cooperative business services for cocoa producers. From 2012 to 2015, she was elected spokeswoman of the GIZ Sector Network Rural Development Africa. 2015 to 2018 Annemarie was also responsible for the Nigeria country Module of the Global Programme “Green Innovation Centres for the Agriculture and Food Sector”. From 2020 to 2022, she coordinated the Agri-Business Facility for Africa (ABF) that provides advisory and capacity development upon request to over 40 development programs, national organizations, and private partners from 25 member states of the African Union. This resulted among others in further scaling of FBS to a total of 1.710.000 agricultural MSME and innovative e-learning offers. The mobilization of co-financing from BMZ and European Union secured the future of ABF. Annemarie retired in 2023.