GOMA Steering Committee: (from left to right) Ulrich Hoffmann (UNCTAD), Diane Bowen (Project Manager), Nadia Scialabba (FAO), Andre Leu (IFOAM), Sophia Twarog (UNCTAD), Selma Doyran (FAO), One Kung Wai (IFOAM)

From FAO:

Nadia Scialabba email: nadia.scialabba@fao.org
Selma Doyran email: selma.doyran@fao.org

From IFOAM:

Ong Kung Wai email: kungwai@tm.net.my
Andre Leu email: chair@ofa.au

From UNTAD:

Sophia Twarog email: Sophia.Twarog@unctad.org
Ulrich Hoffmann email: Ulrich.Hoffmann@unctad.org

About the Steering Committee

Nadia El-Hage Scialabba is a Senior Environment Officer of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). She leads the FAO Inter-Departmental Working Group on Organic Agriculture that is entrusted to build the capacity of countries to produce, process, certify and market organic products. FAO assists its 192 member countries with both normative work (e.g. standards, guidelines, codes) and technical assistance that is provided through field projects.

Selma Doyran is Secretary of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which was created in 1963 by FAO and WHO to develop food standards, guidelines and related texts such as codes of practice under the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme. During her tenure with the Commission, she has facilitated the development of the Codex Guidelines for the Production, Processing, Labelling and Marketing of Organically Produced Food.

Ong Kung Wai works as Grolink partner consultant [www.grolink.se]. He is lead trainer of the Organic Agriculture Development course, sponsored by the Swedish government and editorial member of The Organic Standards, a subscription based journal focused on organic standards, certification, accreditation and regulations [www.organicstandard.com].

Kung Wai is IFOAM World Board member since 2005. Also Chairperson of Organic Alliance Malaysia, a membership based sector association; adviser to ACT, an IFOAM accredited certification body based in Thailand and Coordinator of Certification Alliance, a collaboration of 8 certification bodies working in Asia. At home, he helps his wife run a Rudolf Steiner pre-school education centre.

Andre Leu is a Vice President of IFOAM, the world umbrella organisation for organic systems. He is the Chair of the Organic Federation of Australia, the peak organisation for the organic sector in Australia. Andre is on the Steering Committee of the Global Organic Market Access (GOMA) project and on the Program Committee for IFOAM Organic World Congress in 2011. He is a member of Standards Australia FT-032, the committee that developed the Australian Standard for Organic and Biodynamic Products, the Organic Industry Export Consultative Committee and the RIRDC Organic Systems Research & Development Advisory Committee.

Sophia Twarog has a Ph.D. in economics from Ohio Sate University. She has been working for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) since 1993. The past 11 years she has worked on issues at the interface of trade, environment and development, including harnessing traditional knowledge for development and promoting production and trade in environmentally preferable products including organic agriculture. She has been particularly active in East Africa where she supported the development of the East African Organic Products Standard and work on removing technical barriers to trade in organic products through cooperation with FAO, IFOAM and UNEP

Ulrich Hoffmann studied economics, international finance and commercial law and holds two PhD degrees from Berlin University. He has extensively worked on commodity issues and market development in several positions at the secretariat of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). For now more than 10 years, he has worked on sustainability standards, in particular their developmental and market access impact. In this context, Mr. Hoffmann has focused on organic agriculture, with particular emphasis on harmonization and equivalence in organic guarantee systems. He was UNCTAD’s coordiantor in the FAO/IFOAM/UNCTAD International Task Force on Harmonization and Equivalence in Organic Agriculture. He is also a member of the steering group of the GOMA project. Mr. Hoffmann is the head of UNCTAD’s Trade and Sustainable Development Section and the chief editor of UNCTAD’s bi-annual Trade and Environment Review.

Diane Bowen is GOMA’s Project Manager. A member of the IFOAM staff since 2002, she also served as the Secretary of the FAO/IFOAM/UNCTAD International Task Force on Harmonization and Equivalence in Organic Agriculture. At IFOAM, Ms. Bowen also served as Organic Guarantee System Manager, where she oversaw IFOAM’s program of standards and accreditation, and briefly as Interim Executive Director. Prior to joining IFOAM, Ms. Bowen held executive positions in US organic certification bodies from 1997 to 2001.