Who we are
ALINe is an initiative of the Institute of Development Studies, with financial support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. As ALINe takes shape we hope additional partners will join, adding their own expertise.
Find out more below about the ALINe core team:
Yvonne Pinto
Job title: Director of ALINe, Institute of Development Studies (IDS)
Email address: yvonne@aline.org.uk; y.pinto@ids.ac.uk
ALINe area of responsibility: Director of ALINe
Background: Yvonne joined ALINe as the new Director in January 2010. Until recently, she was also the Programme Manager organising and delivering the Global Conference Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD) in March 2010. GCARD was organised by the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) with support from the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research Centres (CGIAR) and Agropolis International.
Yvonne was, until the end of 2009, based in Seattle as a Program Officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She worked with the largest strategic intermediary of the Foundation and its first African-led one based in Kenya: the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). She also worked with other initiatives in seed systems, integrated pest management and horticulture. For 9 years, she worked as the Africa Executive at the Gatsby Charitable Programme, directing the grant making initiatives in 9 African countries in enterprise, microfinance, agriculture and education and creating 3 new institutions and overseeing another 4.
Yvonne invested 7 years in a scientific career, leading a research team at the John Innes Centre with the Plant Sciences Program funded by the UK Department for International Development, working on African rice systems and did her postdoctoral work on plant/virus interactions in African crops at the Sainsbury Laboratory. She also collaborated, through EU support, with the newly independent states on epitope presentation systems using plant virus vectors towards the future development of edible vaccines.
Yvonne did her BSc at the University of Reading and MSc and PhDs at Imperial College at Wye. She has worked in the Philippines, India, Ethiopia, Kenya, Barbados, the USA and the UK through a career in agricultural development spanning twenty years.
Lawrence Haddad
Job title: Director of Institute of Development Studies (IDS)
Email address: c/o m.asbury@ids.ac.uk
ALINe area of responsibility: Senior advisor to ALINe
Background: Lawrence Haddad is the Director of the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex. His main research interests are at the intersection of poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition - including poverty dynamics, social capital, HIV&AIDS, social protection, agriculture and poverty, and women's empowerment. He was formerly Director of the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Food Consumption and Nutrition Division, President of the UK and Ireland's Development Studies Association, and Lecturer in Development Economics at the University of Warwick. His field research has been in the Philippines, India and South Africa. He has a PhD from Stanford University. He currently provides executive oversight to ALINe.
Efe Atugba
Job title: Project Coordinator, Institute of Development Studies (IDS)
Email address: e.atugba@ids.ac.uk
ALINe area of responsibility: Operational management and general queries
Background: Efe Atugba is the Project Coordinator for ALINe. She joined ALINe recently, having spent the last five years working at Transport for London (TfL) in both administrative and policy research and development capacities and brings this experience to working in development for ALINe. Since studying her BSc degree in politics at Brunel University and, in particular, carrying out her research project in corruption and underdevelopment in Nigeria, Efe’s interest lies in contributing to socially just policy research and development.
Johanna Lindstrom
Job title: Research Officer, Institute of Development Studies (IDS)
Email address: j.lindstrom@ids.ac.uk
ALINe area of responsibility: Johanna is responsible for ALINe background analysis and stakeholder consultations and for the synthesis of ALINe research outputs. She is also involved in ALINe evaluation activities.
Background: Johanna is a social scientist with main research interests in the areas of monitoring and evaluation; agricultural development, food security and nutrition; pro-poor policy processes, policy influence and the research-policy interface; and public awareness of aid and international development. She has a Masters in Environment, Development and Policy.
Andre Ling
Job title: Research Officer, Institute of Development Studies (IDS)
Email address: a.ling@ids.ac.uk
ALINe area of responsibility: Research Officer
Background: Andre joined ALINe recently as a Research Officer and has over 6 years of experience working in India with a wide range of approaches to M&E including both traditional, participatory and multi-stakeholder approaches and methods, using both quantitative and qualitative data. He has been working with BAIF, a partner organisation in India implementing an innovative dairy development programme, to assist them in developing a multi-functional M&E system to support user-oriented performance management, the development of local capacity and institutional learning. He is also involved in an RCT-based evaluation of an innovative participatory feedback mechanism introduced by ACDI/VOCA in a USDA-funded agricultural development programme in the Philippines. Andre has an MA in Participation, Power and Social Change from the Institute of Development Studies and a BSc in Environmental Policy with Economics from the London School of Economics.
