ir. XSA (Xavier) Tezzo

Xavier was born in 1985 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast from a Belgian mother and a Congolese father. With both of his parents working in development cooperation, Xavier spent his entire childhood in Africa, alternating between the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Benin and Ivory Coast. After these formative years, Xavier went back to Belgium where he completed a MSc in Bioengineering from Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) during which he specialized in aquatic ecosystem modelling, followed by a MSc in Microfinance from Solvay Brussels Schools of Economics and Management (SBS-EM) where he studied the empowerment of fisheries communities through cooperatives in Senegal.

After his studies, Xavier worked for over 10 years in the field of fisheries and aquaculture development projects across Africa (Belgian Development Agency) and Southeast Asia (Food and Agricultural Organization, and then WorldFish). It is in 2016, during his experience as a Research Program Coordinator for WorldFish Myanmar that he started this thesis with the Environmental Policy Group (ENP) at Wageningen University as a sandwich candidate. As such, his research took as its starting point and drew on his development work with fisheries and aquaculture in Myanmar.

Xavier continued working throughout his PhD, first with WorldFish where it all began. In 2021, he joined the ENP as a researcher where he assisted the cross-country learning of the CGIAR-funded ‘Food Systems for Healthier Diets’ (FSHD/A4NH) research program and supported the completion of the NWO-funded ‘Supermarket supported area-based management and certification of aquaculture in Southeast Asia’ (SUPERSEAS) project. As of 2023, Xavier is employed as an Agriculture and Food Systems Expert by the Belgian Development Agency (Enabel) where he formulates and coordinates development interventions over sub-Saharan Africa, with a particular focus on the African Great Lakes Region.