Chris Chibwana

Chris Chibwana is a Program Officer in Gender Equity and Governance at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Chris manages a portfolio of grants that aim to strengthen the effectiveness of governments in Africa and improve outcomes for all people.

Chris has 15 years of experience designing, managing, and evaluating development programs. Chris joined the foundation from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya where he served as head of the Hub for Agricultural Policy Action, an initiative designed to help governments use data and evidence to foster the enabling environment for agriculture. Prior to that, Chris spent four years working to improve lives with data and evidence as a partner and the head of Africa for IDinsight, based in Lusaka, Zambia. In this role, he was IDinsight’s primary regional representative and was responsible for realizing the organization’s sector-transforming vision for the Africa region.

He also served at USAID for seven years, including a year in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where he led the design of a large, multisector project to improve nutrition outcomes for women and adolescent girls in the southwest region of Bangladesh. He also worked at USAID in Malawi, where he designed and oversaw projects to support evidence-informed decision-making by the Malawi government to improve results for smallholder farmers. His work as a researcher with the International Food Policy Research Institute contributed to the body of knowledge that informed subsequent reforms to the Malawi government’s agricultural input subsidy program, a key government policy to enhance food security.

Chris has a master’s degree in agricultural economics from Purdue University in Indiana and a bachelor’s degree in agribusiness management from the University of Malawi.