Toon van Eijk
Dr. Van Eijk is a senior rural development expert and multi-disciplinary tropical agronomist with extensive field experience in Eastern & Southern Africa. He worked over 20 years in Africa (5 long-term and 25 short-term assignments). His focus is poverty reduction through integrated rural development. He has worked in projects funded by FAO, IFAD, World Bank, UNOPS, AfDB, DGIS, FINNIDA, SIDA, NORAD, various Embassies and NGOs. His fields of expertise are: sustainable rural development, tropical agronomy, farming systems research and development, agricultural extension (Farmer Field Schools), commercialization of smallholder agriculture, value chain development, rural innovation, management and institutional set-up of agricultural research and extension, rural sociology including livelihoods approaches, and farmer cooperatives and organizations. He has field experience in rain-fed, flood-fed and irrigated agriculture with many food- and cash-crops. He is a pragmatic agronomist with insight in the wider context of sustainable rural development. He has demonstrated experience in all phases of project cycle management (PCM) (including identification, appraisal, formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of projects and programs). His multi-disciplinary background allows him to cover crosscutting issues such as gender and environment adequately. Recently he has been advising various agricultural service providers in Kyrgyzstan and completed a TOT training course on the management of agricultural cooperatives.
In recent issues of The Broker the concepts civic driven change (CDC), systems thinking, complexity theory and institutional innovation have been discussed.
access_time 8 - 10 min
8 July, 2016
label_outline Development Policy
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Although systemic change would be preferable over the current MDG-based approach, we do not have local or global institutions with the intellectual capacity and political power to implement systemic change.
access_time 4 - 6 min
3 June, 2013
label_outline Development Policy
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Toon van Eijk provides his commentary on Jeffrey Sachs’s article ‘Rethinking macroeconomics’
access_time 3 - 5 min
15 February, 2010
label_outline Inclusive Economy
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The WRR report is thoroughly analytical and comprehensive. It is one of the best reports on development aid in the last few decades. The crucial issue is: how to implement its mostly sound recommendations?
access_time 6 - 8 min
4 February, 2010
label_outline Development Policy
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