Dr. Klaus Droppelmann

      Process Facilitator Southern Africa  

klaus.droppelmann@picoteam.org

Klaus’s main interest is to understand how evidence and learning can best be utilized to improve the performance of individuals, organizations, strategies, policies and systems, may that be agricultural production and extension or food and nutrition security information systems.  
After a few years trying to find out how trees survive in a desert, Klaus moved on to join the German development co- operation in Zambia in the year 2001. There he focused on institutional capacity strengthening of decentralised agricultural stakeholder organisations and advised a microcredit fund. From 2004 to 2008 he worked at a national consultation platform in Zambia’s agricultural sector where he gained a deep understanding of institutional relationships and policy processes around agricultural development in southern African. In late 2008 he joined IFRPI to assist in the roll-out of its country program in Malawi and managed that program until 2013, when his family decided to relocated to Johannesburg, South Africa. At that point Klaus joined PICOTEAM where he enjoys working with an interdisciplinary but like-minded team of experts. In recent years Klaus was involved in a research project studying technology up- take processes in smallholder farming communities Malawi and assessing food and nutrition information systems in a number of countries around Africa, namely Zambia, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Tanzania and Mozambique.  
Klaus studied agricultural sciences at Technical University of Weihenstephan and University of Hohenheim in Germany graduating in 1993. For his PhD he moved to the faculty of Geooecology at the University of Bayreuth. In his research work he specialised in water-harvesting technologies for annual cereal and agro-forestry systems conducting field research projects in Israel and Kenya.