Interview with GDPRD Board Member Alessandra Roversi

Email

Michelle Tang/GDPRD Secretariat: Welcome to the board. What are you looking most forward to, and what do you see yourself contributing the most to and gaining from?

Alessandra Roversi/Switzerland: What is very exciting for me is that I’m also representing Switzerland in the SUN (Scaling Up Nutrition) donor network, which is tackling nutrition in the context of food systems. It will be a great opportunity to bring nutrition closer to agriculture and rural development.

In terms of the board, there’s an amazing wealth of expertise and people with great insights from different countries. I’m keen to learn from my peers and to share with them. I’m excited to start those conversations.

Michelle: The global development landscape is changing very rapidly. What are Switzerland’s top priorities and outlook for the near future, particularly in food systems?

Alessandra: I’m going to focus on the agriculture and food security part. Switzerland’s International Cooperation strategy is to support “shorter-term” intervention focusing on humanitarian action, making sure that people get food distribution and the right protection, and strengthening localization through partners like the World Food Program or ICRC. And then stretching into longer-term development, transforming food systems to be more resilient and sustainable, where this fight against hunger also needs to be a fight against all forms of malnutrition.

We are working on interventions to foster local, dynamic, regional food systems that are resilient enough when there’s a shock in the international value chains, as we’ve seen in the Strait of Hormuz and with COVID19. When you have a resilient local food system, you can resist better to those crises.

The idea is through agroecology, for example, to make local food systems more resilient, to focus on domestic production for the local markets and regional integration. We have a strong focus on the African continent, particularly supporting governments, civil society, academia, private sector and the African Union in implementing their Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).

Michelle: The Platform offers a trusted and informal environment. What is the greatest value it brings to the global community, and how can it remain relevant?

Alessandra: The Platform is a unique place for discussions. There are many platforms being created to tackle separate issues, sometimes discussing segmented sectorial topics. But what is important is to keep connecting those platforms together rather than building new ones, and to rely on existing mechanism where trust has been built over time.

The Platform will remain relevant if it keeps engaging with civil society and the private sector. It is predominantly a government platform, but it needs to open up to spaces that are agents of change and partners in food system transformation. The more we keep this engagement, the better.

Geneva is an amazing place for multilateral conversation, both formal and informal. It could be a space to engage dialogue across trade, human rights, with health. Agriculture and health need to be discussed more together for resilient food systems. Geneva is also a hub for humanitarian intervention, so this humanitarian-development-peace nexus can also express itself very well.

Michelle: As champion for the new workstream on AI and data, what is your vision?

Alessandra: It’s an interesting workstream because data is the new oil. That’s why I insist it’s not just about AI — without quality data, you cannot get quality results.

Funding cuts have affected many systems that collect data on nutrition, food security, and health. At the same time, mistrust in science and pushback on norms make it important to rebuild confidence in data systems. Our colleagues from the Swiss Statistics Office have launched a trusted data observatory in Geneva to build trust in data made available with academic and scientific credibility.

We also see developments such as the first UN gathering on governance of AI in Geneva.

I want to bring highlight the fragility of data and the need for reliable evidence. If we don’t know where hunger hits, we cannot prevent it, shape policy, or save lives.

My aim is to bring external expertise, focus on tools and policy debates, and look at governance and tools for agriculture and nutrition through a food-systems view. To support this discussion, the Donor Platform hosted a short webinar on 16 July on applying AI for healthy diets. This will be followed by an upcoming webinar on 2 November, exploring how AI can help turn agricultural data into action through practical examples from RAAPID and NASA Harvest.

Michelle: A key pillar of the new platform strategy is responsiveness. How can it help donors stay ahead of emerging trends rather than reacting to crisis?

Alessandra: The context today is extremely volatile and unpredictable, and it’s more complicated to take time to reflect. So quick formats are really interesting, maybe organizing small, rapid exchanges on a short-term basis. The idea is to have agility and not spend too much time organizing meetings.

Engaging with quick assessments and having a great network of experts who can give insights when needed is also important. We are all extremely busy, so it’s about finding the right attention space and the angle so that members can take those few minutes to reflect and learn something useful for their work. The key is making the content clearly useful for the work of the members.

Michelle: For those interested in the Donor Platform, what would be your elevator pitch?

Alessandra: Don’t try to understand every detail. Just join some events, and from then on start unwinding the rope. If you try to understand everything, you’re going to get confused. The main point is to engage, and you will find something relevant to your work.

Michelle: Finally, could you share your career journey?

Alessandra: I don’t have a conventional career. I started working for the United Nations in the migration field, then moved to a private company, DuPont. After that, I worked for a city government in Switzerland in communication. I then worked as a consultant, for example during Expo Milano 2015 for the Swiss pavilion before joining an NGO promoting agroecology in East Africa. Now I am back in government.

I encourage everyone to step out of their comfort zones. You always find something to learn and it teaches you how other stakeholders think.

Internships are a great way to start, and parallel jobs can help you move toward what you want to do. Follow me on LinkedIn as I informally share with the community many jobs in the food system and food security world.