Transforming food systems for sustainable livelihoods: experiences from Latin America

Andrés Tombé is a Fellow of Wom-en. He is an indigenous Misak passionate about his community, research, innovation, and ancestral traditions.

Currently Andrés is a researcher for the National University of Colombia/Andrés Tombé is a Fellow of Wom-en. He is an indigenous Misak passionate about his community, research, innovation, and ancestral traditions. Currently Andrés is a researcher for the National University of Colombia/International Development Research Center on food diversity, security, and sovereignty in the Misak community. He participated in Youth Social Impact Leaders program in 2020, and after 3 years he is growing his initiative and personal process, where he was trained in soft skills, leadership, hard skills and creation of social projects focused on the 2030 Agenda and SDG's. Last year he published his first book, Insectos en la comunidad Misak. He studied agronomy engineering with academic experience in entomology, production, seed diversity, community work, and volunteering.

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James Leslie is Global Programme Manager for Food and Agricultural Commodities Systems at UNDP, where he integrates a systems approach in efforts to address complex challenges at the nexus of food, climate and biodiversity.

Previously, he worked for many years with UNDP in Peru, as Technical Advisor Ecosystems and Climate Change, where he was responsible for managing the portfolio - including concept development, resource mobilisation and partnership management, and personnel oversight - focused on sustainable commodities and landscapes, climate change, environmental finance and biodiversity conservation. Much of his work has entailed close coordination with national and sub national authorities as well as local communities and private sector, with a particular emphasis on the Andes Amazon. Before joining UNDP, he collaborated with the World Bank, Yale University, the World Wildlife Fund and The Nature Conservancy in Peru, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Mozambique. He holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Sciences with a focus on social ecology and forest governance from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and an MBA from the Yale School of Management, with a focus on business strategy and finance. He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in biology and education from Brown University, USA.