Joachim De Weerdt

Joachim De Weerdt is a development economist based in Belgium. He is Associate Professor at the Institute of Development Policy at the University of Antwerp in Belgium and Senior Research Fellow at the LICOS Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance at KU Leuven. He has published extensively on issues related to poverty, nutrition, smallholder farming, the rural-urban transformation, early childhood development, networks and survey measurement Joachim has two decades of field experience in Africa and of engagement with policy makers and practitioners who fight poverty. He lived and worked as an entrepreneur and researcher in Africa for 12 years. In 2002 he co-founded Economic Development Initiatives (EDI), a research firm based in Tanzania, where he served as Research Director till 2014. During that time EDI grew from a small, two-person start-up to a sustainable, internationally reputed research house, with 40 core employees and frequently over 100 project-based field staff. In 2018 EDI was acquired by Mathematica, a large US-based policy research company, and now continues on its growth path, operating independently as a subsidiary of its new investor.