INTRODUCTION OF CYNTHIA ONYANGORE

“I am participating in the ISA project because I believe that African Indigenous Vegetables (AIVs) can play an integral role in ensuring food security in Kenya, once the indigenous knowledge is harnessed, climate-smart agricultural practices are embraced, and the value chain is successfully commercialized. This requires a multistakeholder and food systems approach among the various stakeholders, and these are the facets I will develop with my project.”

Cynthia Onyangore is a strategic management professional with a focus on building inclusive and sustainable organizations. She has over 19 years of experience in management, corporate finance, and agribusiness in Kenya, the USA, the Middle East, and Europe. Her goal is to combine policy and practice to build sustainable and resilient organizations and address leverage points to ensure food security and sovereignty in Kenya.

Her ISA project focuses on building an inclusive, dynamic, and sustainable African Indigenous Vegetables (AIVs) value chain in Kenya by ensuring the production of good quality and sufficient quantities of AIVs. A 3-pronged approach including climate-smart agriculture, the embedding of indigenous knowledge, and commercialization of the chain will be embraced. These will be done encapsulated in a multistakeholder participatory model addressing the value chain governance and other food systems boundaries. Her project addresses SDGs 2 and 8.