Hilal Elver is a global leader and expert in international human rights law and international environmental law. From May 2014 to April 2020, Elver served as the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, responsible for carrying out the right to food mandate as prescribed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. She is currently serving as an appointed member of the Steering Committee of the High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) on food security and nutrition, and a member of the Scientific Group of the UN Food Systems Hub. She maintains several affiliations with academic institutions worldwide.  She has worked with the Turkish government as the Founding Legal Advisor of Turkey’s Ministry of Environment from 1989 to 1991; the Director of the Environmental Law and Human Rights Committee of the EU Harmonization Committee: Office of the Prime Minister and State Planning Organization from 1989 to 1999; and member and legal advisor of the Turkey’s team UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), from 2009- 2014.She has authored/edited several books including: Peaceful Uses of International Rivers: The Euphrates and Tigris Transboundary River Basins (2002); Headscarf Controversy: Secularism and Freedom of Religion (2012); and Reimagining Climate Change (ed. w/ Paul Wapner) (2016). Select reports, articles, op-eds, and interviews are featured on her website hilalelver.org.

David Kabanda is a food rights lawyer with special interest for social justice in economic and environment related systems. He practices this through legal advocacy, community legal empowerment, public interest litigation, legal research, invoking social equity, and the doctrine of public trust. He is an expert in law, agroecology and an advisor in sustainable agri-food systems. He has done consultancies with UN-FAO, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, WHO, and UNESCO. He has implemented projects using a Human Rights Based Approach.  He is currently a Food Law PHD candidate -University of Western Cape. He has pioneered the litigation on the right to adequate food and health in Uganda, and Africa. He has founded social rights organizations including the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) and now the Center for Food and Adequate Living Rights (CEFROHT). He is leading a team of lawyers in East Africa and in Uganda under the Agriculture and Food law cluster in Uganda law society.  David is a founder and currently the Executive Director at Center for Food and Adequate Living Rights (CEFROHT). www.cefroht.org.

Marlene D. Ramirez is Secretary General of the Asian Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural Areas (AsiaDHRRA) from 1999 to present. She began working for rural development and poverty eradication in the Philippines with PhilDHRRA in 1987 and was Executive Director from 1993-1998. Both at national and regional levels, her expertise covers civil society network development and management, program development and implementation, resource building and mobilization, strategic partnerships, and policy advocacy. In 1999, she pursued AsiaDHRRA’s aspiration of catalyzing a regional farmers’ alliance, now an autonomous body called Asian Farmers’ Association (AFA) serving millions of farmers in Asia. From 2012 to 2020, Marlene sat in the Board of AgriCord global alliance of agri-agencies providing direct financing and advising to farmers/fishers’ organizations and anchors the representation of the Alliance in the Asian region. From 2010 to date, she represents AsiaDHRRA as interlocutor for civil society engagement with FAO-RAP and sits in the Civil Society Governance Council of Grow Asia. Marlene represents AsiaDHRRA in the Coordinating Conference on the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (SOCCOM), has led the drafting of ASEAN Rural Development and Poverty Eradication Framework Action Plan 2011-2015 and the external Mid-term Review of the ASEAN Socio Cultural Community Blueprint in 2013. She currently oversees the implementation of a regional cooperation to empower rural development organizations in Southeast Asia under a five-year Framework Partnership Agreement with EU. She is a graduate of BS Industrial Engineering from Mapua Institute of Technology and has Master’s Degree in Public Management from the Ateneo de Manila University School of Governance.

Million Belay is the coordinator of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty for Africa, a network of networks of major African networks. He is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Food System Sustainability (IPES-Food). Million is the founder of MELCA – Ethiopia, an indigenous NGO. Million has spent the last two decades working on issues such as intergenerational learning of bio-cultural diversity, sustainable agriculture, local communities’ right to seed and food sovereignty, and forest issues. His focus is now on food sovereignty, agroecology, food system transformation, inter-generational learning, knowledge dialogues, and the use of participatory mapping for social learning, identity building, and memory mobilization for resilience. He holds a PhD in environmental education, a MsC in tourism and conservation, and a BsC in biology.

Nitya Rao is Professor, Gender and Development at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom and Director of the Norwich Institute for Sustainable Development. She has worked extensively as a researcher and advocate in the field of women’s rights, employment and education for over three decades. Her research interests include exploring the gendered changes in land and agrarian relations, migration and livelihoods, especially in contexts of climatic variability and economic precarity. She has done fine-grained research on households and intra-household dynamics in these contexts to draw out implications for gendered wellbeing, empowerment and justice, with a particular focus on food, nutrition and health security. She has published extensively on these themes in international peer-reviewed journals and books. She has consistently engaged with policy and practice, at both the global and local levels. Apart from supporting networks of women farmers in India, she served on the Global Advisory Committee of the United Nations Girls Education Initiative for over a decade. She is currently a member of the Steering Group of the High-Level Panel of Experts to the Committee on World Food Security, Commissioner, EAT-Lancet 2.0 on healthy and sustainable diets and member of the Scientific Advisory Group to the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub.