Photo taken by Bosco Muyinda at Mahama Refugee Camp, Rwanda, 2019.
About
An accomplished leader in international organization reform, Catherine Bertini has a distinguished career improving the efficiency and operations of organizations serving poor and hungry people in the United States and around the world.
She was named the 2003 World Food Prize Laureate for her transformational leadership at the World Food Programme (WFP), which she led for ten years, and for the positive impact she had on the lives of women. While in the US government, she expanded the electronic benefit transfer options for food stamp beneficiaries, created the food package for breast feeding mothers, presented the first effort to picture healthy diets, and expanded education and training opportunities for poor women.
Later, she co-chaired a successful effort to impact American policy supporting poor farmers in the developing world. The U.S. program is known as “Feed the Future”. As a United Nations Under Secretary General, she initiated efforts to reform the global system for security of staff and for the recognition of all staff marriages. She interacted with all UN agencies and their leadership through a variety of UN bodies in humanitarian, development, nutrition, security and management roles, and led UN humanitarian missions to the Horn of Africa and to Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. With her World Food Prize, she created the Catherine Bertini Trust Fund for Girls’ Education to support programs to increase opportunities for girls and women to attend school. Bertini’s career includes over twenty years in the private sector; thirteen years as a university professor; three major foundations and a think tank; service in local, state and national governments; board membership in a variety of organizations.
Now an emeritus professor at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, she taught graduate courses in humanitarian action, post conflict reconstruction, girls’ education, UN management, food security, international organizations, and leadership. She has been honored by twelve universities in four countries with honorary degrees and by the Republics of Italy and Ireland. She has received multiple awards for her work to improve the lives of children, for her management of internal reform processes, and for her advocacy for women and girls. She was appointed to senior positions by three UN secretaries general and five US presidents.
Currently, Bertini is the board chair of the Global Crop Diversity Trust. She is a Distinguished Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and she advises the Rockefeller Foundation on global food security issues. She is a member of the advisory board of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and she is an affiliated expert at the Lugar Center.
Bertini is also a board member of the Central New York Community Foundation and a member of the Illinois Agri-Food Alliance. She is one of 70 members of Global Women Leaders’ Voices. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Public Administration and the International Union of Food Science and Technology, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.