Andreea Nowak

Andreea Nowak is the Research Team Lead for Climate Action at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT (a CGIAR center) and a doctoral fellow at Wageningen University and Research. Her work focuses on measuring and tracking adaptation in agriculture, particularly in Africa, combining evidence synthesis and field research to generate robust insights on what works, for whom, and under what conditions. She also serves as a Lead Author for the Agriculture chapter of the IPCC’s Seventh Assessment Report (Working Group II).

Her research emphasizes radically practical approaches to measuring and tracking adaptation. She integrates participatory data collection methods and qualitative knowledge into models, while drawing on both peer-reviewed and grey literature to build evidence syntheses that capture diverse perspectives. She is particularly interested in social inclusion and equity, ensuring that adaptation measurement frameworks reflect user priorities and highlight less-heard voices, especially those of smallholder farmers, women, and marginalized groups.

A central aspect of her work is raising the profile of non-state actors in adaptation. She supports private sector actors, particularly small and medium-sized agri-enterprises, in measuring and tracking their adaptation investments and strengthening their contributions to national and global reporting processes. Through initiatives such as AICCRA and the CGIAR Food Systems Accelerator, she has led capacity-building efforts and provided technical assistance to agribusiness SMEs to co-design metrics, strengthen impact pathways, and link local action to global frameworks.

With more than a decade of experience in agricultural research for development across Latin America and Africa, Andreea has specialized in the design, scaling, and assessment of climate-resilient farming strategies. She holds an MSc in International Development and Management from Lund University and a BA in Political Science from the University of Bucharest. Alongside her PhD research, she actively contributes to global policy dialogues on adaptation, bridging science, practice, and the lived realities of farmers.