Food Security and World Hunger with Katherine Meighan, International Fund for Agricultural Development

Last October, at the Annual Meeting of the International Bar Association in Rome, I was fortunate enough to be introduced to Katherine Meighan, the General Counsel of IFAD, the International Fund for Agricultural Development.  Katherine gave an eye-opening presentation at the IBA conference on IFAD’s efforts to address the issue of food security and world hunger, and I knew I had to have her on the podcast to share her message and to dig deeper into her work as General Counsel and IFAD’s incredible work in general. Katherine’s unique background has served her well in preparing for the role of IFAD General Counsel.  Before joining IFAD, Katherine was Assistant General Counsel and Manager at the International Finance Corporation, where Katherine led the legal work globally for Financial Institutions, Treasury, and restructuring/litigation.  During her 17 years at IFC, Katherine was based in Buenos Aires, Istanbul, and Washington, D.C.  Previously, Katherine worked at a global law firm in Washington, D.C. and Paris focusing on international transactions and capital markets work for financial institutions.  Katherine has a law degree from the University of Virginia and an undergraduate degree from William & Mary, where she is a member of the Advisory Board of the International Center. In our conversation, Katherine tells us more about IFAD, the entities with which it works, and how it operates.  Katherine explains why the organization focuses on supporting agricultural development of the “rural poor” and the “missing middle.”  I had Katherine walk me through the Sustainable Development Goals set-out by the United Nations and how IFAD has developed innovative funding mechanisms to leverage private funds and create partnerships to make progress on increasing food security worldwide. We also touched upon the important social issues affecting global agriculture, including climate change and mass migration, as well as the tremendous gap between the number of women worldwide who are involved in food production and the number of women who actually own and manage land. As you will hear, Katherine is passionate about her work, and I really enjoyed getting to learn more about her and IFAD’s inspiring and important mission to eradicate hunger for the world’s most underserved rural poor.  Bergeson & Campbell’s interest in food security is rooted in our deep engagement in the law and science of precision agriculture and fertilizers, and we are really excited to share with you IFAD’s important work on food security.  So, here is my discussion with Katherine Meighan, General Counsel of the International Fund for Agricultural Development. ALL MATERIALS IN THIS PODCAST ARE PROVIDED SOLELY FOR INFORMATIONAL  AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES. THE MATERIALS ARE NOT INTENDED TO CONSTITUTE LEGAL ADVICE OR THE PROVISION OF LEGAL SERVICES. ALL LEGAL QUESTIONS SHOULD BE ANSWERED DIRECTLY BY A LICENSED ATTORNEY PRACTICING IN THE APPLICABLE AREA OF LAW.