Catherine Bertini

Catherine "Cathy" Bertini is a leader in international organization management, girls education, humanitarian action, agricultural development, nutrition, and the role of gender in poverty reduction. She is the 2003 World Food Prize Laureate. She was the Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program from 1992 to 2002. She served as the Under-Secretary for Management from 2003 to 2005. Currently she is a distinguished fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the Chair of the Board of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN).[1][2]

Catherine Bertini
Executive Director of the World Food Programme
In office
April 1992 – April 2002
Secretary GeneralBoutros Boutros-Ghali
Kofi Annan
Preceded byJames Ingram
Succeeded byJames Morris
Under-Secretary-General for Management
In office
2003–2005
Secretary GeneralKofi Annan
Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for Food and Consumer Services United States Department of Agriculture
In office
1989–1992
Acting Assistant Secretary of Family Support Administration United States Department of Health and Human Services
In office
1989–1989
Director of the Office of Family Assistance United States Department of Health and Human Services
In office
1987–1989
Personal details
Born (1950-03-30) March 30, 1950
Syracuse, New York, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
EducationState University of New York, Albany (BA)

International career

Executive Director of the World Food Program, United Nations

Catherine Bertini was appointed in 1992 by the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization, on the recommendation of President George H.W. Bush. In 1997, she was reappointed with the endorsement of President Bill Clinton, together with that of the Group of 77 developing countries and the Executive Board of WFP.[3]

As chief executive officer of the organization, Bertini transformed WFP into the world's largest and most responsive humanitarian organization. She is credited with assisting hundreds of millions of victims of wars and natural disasters throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and parts of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. In particular, she was widely praised for her efforts to end famine in North Korea; averting starvation in Afghanistan by delivering enormous amounts of urgently needed food aid in 2001; ensuring the provision of food supplies during the crises in Bosnia and Kosovo; and in 2000, averting the mass starvation that threatened 16 million people in the Horn of Africa.[4] In 1996, The Times of London named her one of "The World's Most Powerful Women."

Catherine Bertini also led major efforts to empower poor women through the use of food aid. The institutional changes championed by Bertini during her leadership at the WFP were cited by the 36-government board of WFP as models of U.N. reform. Further, Bertini’s changes placed the food aid agency at the forefront of international agencies in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, accountability, and income. In recognition of her leadership at WFP in ending famine and decreasing hunger, she received the World Food Prize, known as the "Nobel Prize for Food and Agriculture" in 2003.[3] Rather than accepting the prize money, she established the Catherine Bertini Trust Fund for Girls' Education that provides grants to local organizations that improve access to training and education for women and girls.[5]

She also chaired the U.N. System Standing Committee on Nutrition and served as the Secretary General's envoy twice: for drought in the Horn of Africa and for humanitarian needs in Gaza and the West Bank.[4]

Under-Secretary General For Management, United Nations

Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Bertini as Under-Secretary for Management in 2003.[4] She was responsible for administering the United Nations’ human, financial and physical resources. This included management of the $3 billion biennial budget, human resources to support over 9,000 United Nations staff members, accounting, treasury, contributions; travel and information systems; facilities management and security of staff worldwide. She also managed the investment portfolio of the UN Joint System Pension Fund ($29 billion) and the implementation of many of the Secretary-General’s management reform initiatives including: major reforms of worldwide security management system; crisis management following the fatal Baghdad headquarters bombing; arrangements with Coalition forces on the UN's re-entry into Iraq; creation of a whistleblower policy; initiation of a more robust financial disclosure requirement; reform of the spousal benefit plan; and establishment of key funding mechanisms to allow the UN facility refurbishment to proceed.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

From 2007 to 2009, she served as a Senior Fellow in Agricultural Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.[6] She contributed to the development of the foundation’s new agricultural framework, seeking to improve the lives of poor farmers, especially women farmers. She led the first gender initiatives at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.[7][8][9]

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs

Catherine Bertini is a Distinguished Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. She helped create and co-chaired the Council's Global Agriculture Development Initiative (GADI) from 2008 to 2013. GADI has been an influential voice in US government circles advocating for new priorities for support for poor farmers within international development programs.[10][11] She also chaired the Council's two Girls in Rural Economies projects, one in 2011[12] and one in 2018[13] and co-chaired the Council's domestic Agriculture Task Force in 2007 and 2012.[2]

The Rockefeller Foundation

From 2017 to 2019 Catherine served as a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow. Bertini worked on a fellowship project titled "Leadership in Response to a Changing World" which reviewed the international institutions and programs that could help advance humanitarian relief, development, and pandemic response.[14] She published a report titled "Leading Change in United Nations Organizations", which gives guidance to incoming senior management in the United Nations and advice on leading transformational change.[15]

Domestic career

During the President George H.W. Bush administration, Catherine Bertini served as Acting Assistant Secretary of the Family Support Administration in the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and as Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for Food and Consumer Services at the United States Department of Agriculture. Her portfolio included then $33 billion domestic food assistance programs, strategy on nutrition and consumer affairs, and her team developed the first Food Guide Pyramid to promote healthy diets. She also led the interagency efforts to replace food coupons and welfare checks with electronic benefit cards, and through the administration's Farm Bill proposals, worked with Congress to change the law to allow states to implement electronic benefit transfer (EBT). By 2004, all states had converted to electronic benefit transfer program. Additionally, Bertini created a food package for low-income breastfeeding mothers. Initiation of this package correlated directly with increases in the percentage of low-income American mothers who breastfed their infants.

During the Reagan administration, Bertini served as the Director of the Office of Family Assistance at DHHS. She was responsible for regulations that strengthened education and training support for the poorest American women in support of the Family Support Act of 1988.

Board for International Food and Agricultural Development

President George W. Bush appointed and President Barack Obama reappointed her to the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development (BIFAD), where she advised USAID for nine years (2006-2015) on agriculture and higher education issues pertinent to food insecurity in developing countries.[16]

Accountability Review Board

In 2012, Catherine Bertini was named to serve on the State Department's five-member Accountability Review Board that examined the facts and circumstances of the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.[17][18]

State and Local Government

Earlier in her career, Bertini was appointed by Illinois Governor James R. Thompson as a member of the Illinois Human Rights Commission, and as a member of the Illinois State Scholarship Commission.[3] While living in New York State, she ran several public youth employment programs and was a legislative aide to State Senator Tarky Lombardi and a confidential assistant in the appointments office of Governor Nelson Rockefeller.

Academic career

Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs

In 2005, Bertini joined the faculty of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. She taught graduate courses in Managing Change in the United Nations, Girl's Education, International Organizations, Executive Leadership, Food Security, and Post-Conflict Reconstruction. She served for one year as Chair of the International Relations Department and one year as the Vice-Chair of the Public Administration and International Affairs Department. She taught at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs for twelve years and in 2018 was named Professor Emeritus.[19]

Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

In 2002, she taught for one semester as Policy Maker in Residence at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government

In 1986, she taught for one semester as a Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Private sector career

Before joining the federal government, she served for ten years in public affairs positions at the Container Corporation of America in Chicago, where she ran its public affairs department, its foundation, and where she created its political action committee.[4]

Recent awards

Catherine Bertini is the 2003 World Food Prize Laureate and, in 2007, was awarded the Gene White Lifetime Achievement Award for Child Nutrition.[20] She has also been named a Champion of the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit. Concern Worldwide U.S. presented her its Brigid Award in 2010.[21] She is also the recipient of the 2011 Borlaug CAST Communication Award.[22] In 2013, she received the Women Extraordinaire Award from the International Women Associates.[23] Bertini was decorated by the Republic of Italy with its Order of Merit. The Republic of Ireland has honored her with its Certificate of Irish Heritage. Twelve universities in four countries have awarded her honorary degrees.[24] The City of Cortland named her one of its "Historic Figures" and Cortland High School and the Cortland Living History Museum each elected her to their "Hall of Fame."

Background and education

Bertini was born in Syracuse, New York in 1950. She earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the State University of New York at Albany.[25] At Albany, Bertini was president of the College Republicans and worked full-time in the last gubernatorial campaign of Nelson A. Rockefeller. For five years after college, she held positions in the Republican Party as a youth director in New York State and for the Republican National Committee, and as a congressional campaign manager for George Wortley (R- Syracuse). In 1982, she ran for US Congress herself in the 9th District of Illinois.[26] She resides in Homer, New York, where she sometimes plays clarinet in the community band. She is a lector at masses at St. Margaret Roman Catholic Church.

Professional affiliations

Honorary degrees

Selected past board service
  • Board of International Food and Agricultural Development, USAID Presidential Appointee, Washington D.C.
  • UN Women Audit Advisory Committee, Member
  • Hilton Foundation Humanitarian Prize, Juror
  • United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition, Chair
  • United Nations, Chief Executives’ Board Member and Chair, Management Committee, NY
  • United Nations International School Board of Trustees, Chair, NY
  • World Food Security’s High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition, Member, Rome, Italy
  • Tupperware Brands, Member
  • Henri Dunant Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, Board Member, Geneva, Switzerland
  • Commodity Credit Corporation, Presidential Appointee, Washington D.C.
  • Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Board Member, Chicago, IL
  • Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), System Management Board Member
gollark: Firing your pandemic response team a while before a pandemic is at least not as stupid as doing it during one.
gollark: I blame some sort of weird interaction between insurance companies, regulation/the government, consumers of healthcare services, and the companies involved in healthcare.
gollark: The US healthcare system is just really quite broken and there is probably not some individual there who's just going "MWAHAHAHA, my plan to increase the price of healthcare has succeeded, and I could easily make everything reasonable but I won't because I'm evil!", or one person who could decide to just make some stuff free right now without introducing some huge issues. It's a systemic issue.
gollark: Yes, they do have considerations other than minimizing short-term COVID-19 deaths, but that is sensible because other things do matter.
gollark: The US government, and large business owners and whoever else ("capitalism"), don't really want people to die in large numbers *either*, they're:- still *people*- adversely affected by said large numbers dying, because: - if lots of people die in the US compared to elsewhere, they'll look bad come reelection - most metrics people look at will also be worse off if many die and/or are ill for a while - many deaths would reduce demand for their stuff, and they might lose important workers, and more deaths means a worse recession

References
  1. https://www.gainhealth.org/knowledge-centre/catherine-bertini-to-chair-the-global-alliance-for-improved-nutrition-gain/
  2. Affairs, Chicago Council on Global. "Catherine Bertini | Chicago Council on Global Affairs". Thechicagocouncil.org. Retrieved 2016-11-28.
  3. "Biography". Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. Retrieved 2011-08-08.
  4. "Press Release". United Nations. Retrieved 2011-08-08.
  5. "Announcing Our New Grantees For The Catherine Bertini Trust Fund". World Food Program USA. Archived from the original on 2016-11-28. Retrieved 2016-11-28.
  6. "Press Release". Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Archived from the original on 2012-03-29. Retrieved 2011-08-08.
  7. https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/Documents/gender-impact-strategy.pdf
  8. https://genderedinnovations.stanford.edu/images/Gender_Checklist.pdf
  9. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/04/28/717438397/melinda-gates-on-marriage-parenting-and-why-she-made-bill-drive-the-kids-to-scho
  10. https://www.feedthefuture.gov/
  11. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/05/18/remarks-president-symposium-global-agriculture-and-food-security
  12. https://www.thechicagocouncil.org/publication/girls-grow-vital-force-rural-economies
  13. https://digital.thechicagocouncil.org/girls-rural-economies-2018-report
  14. https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/about-us/news-media/rockefeller-foundation-announces-inaugural-cohort-fellows/
  15. https://www.thechicagocouncil.org/publication/leading-change-united-nations-organizations
  16. "BIFAD Public Session : Minutes" (PDF). Usaid.gov. Retrieved 29 May 2018.
  17. "Briefing on the Accountability Review Board Report". U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2016-11-28.
  18. https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=727502
  19. https://www.maxwell.syr.edu/pa/Bertini,_Catherine/
  20. "Press Release". The World Food Prize. Retrieved 2011-07-31.
  21. "Honorees". Concern Worldwide. Archived from the original on 2011-10-02. Retrieved 2011-08-08.
  22. "Press Release". Council for Agricultural Science and Technology. Retrieved 2011-08-08.
  23. "Catherine Bertini receives IWA's 2013 Woman Extraordinaire Award". Retrieved 2016-11-28.
  24. "Biography". Syracuse University. Retrieved 2009-07-31.
  25. "Honoree". University at Albany. Retrieved 2011-07-29.
  26. "Choices for Congress (October 17, 1982)". Retrieved 2016-11-28.
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by
James Ingram		 Executive Director of the World Food Programme
1992–2002		 Succeeded by
James Morris
Honorary titles
Preceded by
Pedro A. Sanchez		 Recipient of the World Food Prize
2003		 Succeeded by
Monty Jones
Yuan Longping
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