Alan Piazza

My long standing professional objective has been overcoming poverty and hunger in developing countries through rural development.  Utilizing my Ph.D. in agricultural economics (Stanford’s Food Research Institute) and Chinese language skills, I spent most of my thirty years at the World Bank working to promote China’s rural development and poverty reduction.  This work program comprised a mix of research reports and lending operations, and focused on a multisectoral project approach to poverty reduction with outreach to the poorest and most remote villages and to the most disadvantaged ethnic minority groups.  Community empowerment and participation have played increasingly important roles in these projects.  Following my retirement from the World Bank in early-2012, I have remained actively engaged in rural development and poverty reduction through teaching (at Johns Hopkins University), consulting (for the World Bank, FAO, and IFAD), and writing (Oxford and others).