Cornelis (Kees) Swaans

Cornelis (Kees) is an expert on climate change and development with more than 20 years of experience in Africa and Asia. His work has evolved from addressing technical and social challenges in agriculture, health, and natural resource management to integrated (knowledge) management and policy engagement for sustainable development. He has worked as a scientist, project coordinator and program manager for different types of organizations, including universities, international research organizations and NGOs.

Kees joined the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT in 2019. He is currently leading the Climate Action work in Asia and is responsible for several projects and programs on (digital) climate advisory and bundled services, including DERISK SE Asia (which will end in 2024) and the CGIAR initiative Asian Mega-Deltas. Together with a team of development professionals, scientists, and consultants, he has been working on national and subnational climate risk profiles and investment plans, as well as the development and scaling of various risk assessment tools and agroclimatic advisory products and other services by taking a user-centered design appraoch. Main focus has been on the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan. He is strongly interested in working across disciplines, making use of both qualitative with quantitative data, and linking the technical with the socio-ecological and political. He is also contributing to the CGIAR iniative Nature-Positive Sollutions, where he acts as a focal point for Vietnam on behalf of the Agrobiodiversity for Food and Agriculture of the Alliance.

Kees is Dutch from origin and earned a PhD from the VU University Amsterdam in Research on Innovation in the Life Sciences and two MSc studies from Wageningen University in respectively Management of Agroecological Knowledge Systems and Plant Pathology. He lives since 2015 in Hanoi, Vietnam with his family.