prof.dr. R (Ruerd) Ruben

Ruerd Ruben is professor and coordinator of the research programs on food security, value chains and impact assessment at Wageningen Economic Research, the Netherlands. His research concerns the prospects for smallholder participation in tropical food value chains, the effectiveness of rural cooperative organizations and the impact of fair trade certification in value chains.
Ruerd is also Member Program Management Committee A4NH (CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health).

Ruerd lived and worked for 14 years in Central America where he was engaged in programs of land reform, cooperative development and smallholder agriculture. He coordinated multidisciplinary research and training programs at Wageningen University on food security and sustainable land use in several sub-Saharan countries and was a visiting research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, D.C.

He was the director of the independent Policy and Operations Evaluation (IOB) department at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and professor in Development Effectiveness and Director of the Centre for International Development Issues (CIDIN) at Radboud University Nijmegen.