Wietske Kropff

Wietske Kropff has a background in bio-physics and joined CIAT in 2018 to work on digital technologies for small holder farmers. Starting in Colombia, she worked on a complete analysis and strategic planning for the maize sector including setting up strong partnerships with the public and private sectors. She has also worked with the CGIAR big data platform as the global coordinator for the community of practice on data-driven agronomy. Her work with the Big Data Platform includes conducting gap analyses and an analysis on what to prioritize -and how to enable this- regarding the uptake of digital solutions in the agricultural sector. She has also worked on developing a methodology that assesses a countries readiness and it's key opportunities for digital solutions within the food sector. So far, she has lead this process in 8 countries in collaboration with the World Bank, the FAO and the African Development Bank, and is currently working on these country analysis an additional two countries, Honduras and Guatamala.

In the last two years her focus has mainly been in the Horn of Africa working on climate adaptation in agriculture through the mainstreaming of digital technologies. She worked on setting up a method on testing the feasibility of technologies in the Horn of Africa region and is currently leading the Digital Technologies for Climate Adaptation work with the Global Center for Adaptation in the region. She is also leading the work on the establishment of a regional innovation hub for the Inter Governmental Agency for Development for Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, South-Sudan and Kenya.