Brian Cook is an expert in the study of food systems and consumer food behaviour. As Senior Researcher at the University of Oxford, he led a research programme testing behavioural strategies to promote healthier and more sustainable diets. Before joining Oxford, he was a Senior Health Researcher for the City of Toronto for over a decade where he led the development of the City of Toronto Food Strategy. He has years of experience as a consultant, preparing literature reviews, technical reports and evidence briefs for the FAO, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, the European Commission, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and others.

Jess Halliday is Chief Executive of RUAF CIC and coordinator of the RUAF Global Partnership. She leads RUAF’s involvement in the CGIAR Resilient Cities Initiative, the RUAF-FAO City Region Food Systems Initiative, and the Urban Futures programme (funded by the Botnar Foundation). Jess also co-edits Urban Agriculture Magazine. Her main areas of expertise are urban and city region food systems governance, food environments, gender and inclusion, and multi-stakeholder processes. Jess draws on her academic background for the development of methodologies and tools for urban and city region food systems, having received her PhD in Food Policy from the Centre for Food Policy, City University London, in 2015. Prior to joining RUAF in 2018, Jess completed short contracts with the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) and CIRAD. From 2002 to 2011 she worked as a journalist specialising in the food sector, across online, print, and broadcast media. 

Joy Carey is an independent Sustainable Food Systems Planning consultant with a focus on cities. She has worked in sustainable food and farming with the UK and international organic and local food sectors since 1990. Joy is a founding director of Bristol Food Network and author of ‘Who Feeds Bristol: Towards a resilient food plan’ (2011) – a city region food system assessment report that has informed RUAF’s work with FAO on City Region Food Systems (CRFS). Since 2016 she has contributed to both CRFS assessment methodology and indicator frameworks for tracking progress on the delivery of food policy and strategy, including the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact monitoring framework for cities. From 2018-2021, Joy led Bristol’s collaborative effort to become recognised as a Gold Status Sustainable Food City. That work continues today as Bristol Good Food 2030.

Charlotte is the the Global Programme Director of Rikolto’s Good Food for Cities programme where she supports and leads a global team of 40+ people working on urban food environments, regenerative agriculture, circular and inclusive entrepreneurship, short food chains, multi-stakeholder and multi-level food governance, policy advocacy and peer-to-peer learning. Prior to joining Rikolto in 2016, she held short-term positions with the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and IUCN’s EU Liaison Office.

She holds masters degrees in International Relations and Sociology & Anthropology from Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium and an MSc in Environmental Sustainability from the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom.

In addition to her role as RUAF Board Member, Charlotte also represents Rikolto in the Multi-Stakeholder Advisory Committee (MAC) of the Sustainable Food Systems programme of the One Planet Network and the Urban Food Systems Coalition.

Luc Mougeot is a Senior Fellow at the University of Ottawa’s School of International Development and Global Studies, Canada (July 2022 – June 2025). Luc worked at Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) from 1989 to 2021, with various programs to support researchers and their organizations in the global South and in Canada, in fields of social and environmental sciences, natural sciences and engineering, technology and education. Luc’s IDRC programme, Cities Feeding People, supported path breaking research to advance public policies for urban agriculture’s role in urban development. This included supporting, with DGIS, the creation of RUAF in 1999, its growth a global resource network for urban agriculture, and its contribution to key multilateral events and initiatives. Before joining IDRC, Luc was a faculty (associate professor) for 12 years at the Federal University of the State of Pará (Belém), in the Brazilian Amazon region. Luc has directed or supervised research projects, theses and dissertations of more than 35 researchers. He has published more than 70 articles, chapters, reports and books. He is a scientific reviewer for peer-review journals, for research funding agencies in Canada and abroad, and an advisor to international research programmes and networks. 

Barbara Emanuel is Chair of the RUAF Board and was previously a member of the RUAF Global Partnership. Barbara recently retired after working for 30 years at the City of Toronto. As Manager of the Toronto Food Strategy she led a team that incubated numerous initiatives to promote a healthy, sustainable food system for Toronto. This required collaboration and leveraging resources from multiple City Departments as well as engagement with the provincial and federal government. The food strategy applied an equity and food system lens to all policies and initiatives. The food strategy team also worked closely with community food leaders and food-related not for profit organizations, thus ensuring grounded and effective food policy and action. Barbara was also responsible for the Toronto Food Policy Council, the longest established multi-stakeholder council at the municipal level.
Throughout her career, Barbara has been active at the global level through multiple organizations. Barbara was a member of the MUFPP steering committee for a number of years, helped support the Food Systems Working Group supported by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, GAIN and a number of global food organizations and is currently engaged in some market related initiatives through GAIN. Barbara was also a founding member of the C40 Food Systems Working Group.

René van Veenhuizen is Senior Project Manager with Hivos.  René has worked with RUAF for the last 25 years – starting at ETC, then with RUAF Foundation, and from 2018-2023 with Hivos as coordinator the RUAF Partnership Secretariat. René graduated in Land and Water Management from Wageningen University, the Netherlands. He has over 35 years’ professional experience, working with universities, the UN, and various NGOs. As Senior Project Manager with Hivos, he currently coordinates the EU-funded AfriFoodLinks project, and is Advisor to the Urban Futures programme (funded by Fondation Botnar) and the EU-funded HealthyFoodAfrica project. He has been the editor of the Urban Agriculture Magazine for 20 years, is co-author of several publications on sustainable food systems and urban agriculture, and is a speaker at local and international workshops and public engagements. He has extensive advisory and consultative experience, advising on sustainable agricultural development, urban agriculture and food systems. 

Yves Cabannes was an urban specialist, activist and scholar. Since the early 1990s, he has been actively involved in local development projects with NGOs, international agencies and local governments and actors. He researched, teached and advocated for urban agriculture, urban food systems, food sovereignty, collective and communal land tenure and integration of food into urban and regional planning in different regions of the world, primarily in the Global South. He has published widely on these topics. Yves has been involved with RUAF since its early days and was the Secretary of its Board of Directors (2012-2017). He became Emeritus Professor of Development Planning at the University College London in 2015.

Philip Amoah is an expert in urban agriculture and in water quality and food safety. He has worked with RUAF for over two decades. In 2001, Philip became involved in several research projects of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) related to environmental and human health with a focus on microbiological water quality and food safety. He took over leadership of the SaniPath project for IWMI (coordinated by Emory, USA) which assessed faecal exposure pathways in low-income urban settings. Philip was a member of WHO Water Quality Technical Advisory Group that contributed to preparation of new Editions of three WHO guidelines. He was an Africa representative of the UN FAO/WHO Expert Group on leafy green vegetables and herbs for CODEX ALIMENTARIUS in 2007/2008, and a member of the UN FAO/WHO Expert Group on microbiological hazards associated with fresh produce for CODEX ALIMENTARIUS between 2008 and 2010. Philip was a member of the ILSI Europe emerging issues task force, water and sanitation perspective from 2011 to 2014. Since 2008, Philip has led projects in the domains of safe wastewater irrigation in urban vegetable production and participatory knowledge management. He has also been a consultant in projects on urban food systems, and has led several resource recovery and reuse projects.