Jean-Marc Sinnassamy

Jean-Marc joined the GEF Secretariat in November 2007. He has been involved in the development of nearly 200 projects and programs worth more than $1.5 billion related to sustainable land and forest management, mainly in Africa. Jean-Marc has particularly been involved in facilitating several multi-country programmatic approaches, such as the Pilot Program on Food Security or Resilient Food Systems Program, the Congo, and the recent Critical Forest Biomes Integrated Program in five regions.

Prior to joining the GEF, Jean-Marc was based in Benin, West Africa, supporting the development of a national policy on spatial planning and facilitating a community-based management project in the context of decentralization. Before working in Africa, Jean-Marc worked ten years in the Mediterranean for various partners on coastal and marine environment (research, monitoring, management planning). He coordinated a program at the Tour du Valat private foundation based in Camargue, France (a center for the research and conservation of Mediterranean wetlands) aimed at delivering research results to decision makers and site managers.

Jean-Marc is particularly interested in multi-stakeholder approaches related to land-use planning and conservation issues, including the role of traditional authorities in local governance and the notion of integration at different scales. He holds a master’s in environment management from the University of Montpellier, France.