Emile A. Frison

Emile Frison "is Director General of Bioversity International, a post he has held since 1 August 2003.

"Dr Frison is a Belgian national and has spent most of his career in international agricultural research for development, starting at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria in 1979. A plant pathologist by training, he obtained an MSc from the Catholic University of Louvain and a PhD from the University of Gembloux in Belgium. He worked in Africa for six years, in Nigeria and Mauritania, and was Development Manager of an Agro-chemical company in Belgium for three years.

"In 1987, he joined Bioversity International (then known as IBPGR) to coordinate research on the phytosanitary aspects of international germplasm movement. In 1992 he became Regional Director for Europe within Bioversity and initiated a new phase of the European Cooperative Programme for Crop Genetic Resources Networks and launched the European Forest Genetic Resources Programme.

"Dr Frison became the Director of the International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain (INIBAP) in 1995. He launched the Global Programme for Musa Improvement (PROMUSA), which now counts more than 120 members and was instrumental in the establishment of the Global Consortium on Musa Genomics with 27 members from 14 countries.

"He recently lead Bioversity and its stakeholders and partners in the formulation of a new strategic vision for the organization, in which nutrition and agricultural biodiversity will play an important role in the overall goal of reducing hunger and poverty in a sustainable manner.

"As Director General of Bioversity he also leads the CGIAR System-Wide Genetic Resources Policy Programme (SGRP) and is a member of the CGIAR Genetic Resources Policy Committee (GRPC). Dr Frison is also a member of the Board of Directors of Ecoagriculture Partners.

"He is author and co-author of over 120 scientific publications and is a member of several scientific societies."