Coumba Dieng Sow

Coumba Dieng Sow is the Representative and Country Director of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for Rwanda and Djibouti.

Coumba D. Sow is a strong advocate for African youth and women empowerment in the agriculture sector, raising awareness of the existed realities of you and women farmers in Africa and supporting the removal of barriers for them to access land, inputs, finances, training, technologies, and innovations which would help reducing hunger, and increasing revenues and economic growth.

She joined FAO in 2006 as Agricultural Policy Officer working in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. She worked amongst others in the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) of the NEPAD. In 2013, she was appointed, to the Office of the Director-General (ODG), Responsible for the Africa in charge of the liaison with the Social and Economic Department as well as Technical Cooperation.

From 2017 to June 2022, she was FAO Coordinator of the Emergencies and Resilience for West Africa and Sahel supporting the implementation of the food security and resilience programmes in 18 countries of the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) with a strong focus on the Liptako Gourma (Burkina Fas, Mali and Niger) and the North East Nigeria. She launched during that period the FAO programme 1 million cisterns for the Sahel providing access to women to fresh water for household consumption and surplus for kitchen gardening and horticulture production.

Ms. Coumba Dieng Sow, a national of Senegal, studied Political Sciences in Management of Public Policies in Sciences Po Paris, Agroindustries in Montpellier, and is post graduated in Agricultural Economics from the University of London.

She is an active user of Twitter follow and chat with her @CoumbaDSow