People
Alejandro Guarin
Senior researcher, Shaping Sustainable Markets
Email:
alejandro.guarin@iied.orgResearch profile:
Expertise:
- Agro-food systems, especially small-scale production and informal food markets;
- consumer behaviour, particularly in the new middle classes;
- REDD and deforestation in the Amazon basin; green economy and environment/development relations.
Current work:
- Sustainable diets: understanding how to produce healthy and diverse food, and working with local partners in Africa, Asia and Latin America to make it affordable for consumers and profitable for local producers.
- Consumer behaviour: using experimental methods to investigate the meaning and possibilities for sustainable consumption in the new middle classes in rising powers (India and Brazil).
- Deforestation in the Amazon: using a landscape approach to understand land use change at the forest/agriculture frontier, and to develop policies — including REDD — that include rather than marginalize smallholder farmers.
Before IIED:
Researcher at the German Development Institute (DIE) in Bonn. Previously consultant for FAO and local governments in Colombia.
Education: BSc in Biology (Universidad Nacional de Colombia); MSc in Geography (Penn State); PhD in Geography (Berkeley).
Languages:
Spanish, English, and some German