Eastern Africa

Susan Kaaria

Program Officer Nairobi

Susan Kaaria works on livelihood issues in the foundation's Nairobi office. Her grant making supports research and development organizations making investments in linking small-scale farmers to markets. Her work focuses on creating market development policies and action research to assess which markets and products offer the greatest potential to raise income and food consumption in marginalized communities where women and children, in particular, are vulnerable.

Prior to joining the Ford Foundation in 2008, Susan was a senior scientist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, where she worked in both Latin America and Eastern and Southern Africa. She has more than 10 years of experience conducting community-based research that has focused on understanding how poor rural households transition out of poverty through market development; evaluating the key drivers of market access for women; and assessing the implications of market access on gender and intra-household dynamics. She has published widely on these subjects and is a co-editor of "Innovation Africa: Enriching Farmers' Livelihoods" (Earthscan, 2009).

Susan's background is in natural resources and agricultural economics. She has a Ph.D. in forest resources economics from the University of Minnesota. She holds a master's degree in agricultural economics from Iowa State University and a bachelor's degree in agriculture from the University of Eastern Africa in Kenya. In 1998, Susan was a Rockefeller Foundation Warren Weaver Fellow.