Scott Drimie

Scott Drimie leads a research and facilitation consultancy with regional associates focusing on food security, food systems and livelihood issues in Southern Africa. The company consults for various public and private sector organisations.

He is an Extraordinary Associate Professor at Stellenbosch University in the Division of Human Nutrition, Interdisciplinary Health Sciences and an Extraordinary Senior Lecturer at the Sustainability Institute within the School of Public Management and Planning at the University.

Between 2007 and 2011, Scott was a research fellow with the International Food Policy Research Institute. His major responsibility was the coordination of the Regional Network on AIDS, Livelihoods and Food Security or RENEWAL (www.ifpri.org/renewal), which facilitated research on the interactions between HIV and food and nutrition security and their implications for development policy and practice in southern and eastern Africa.

Before then he was a Senior Research Specialist in the Integrated Rural and Regional Development programme of the Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa. Here he played a key role in the establishment of the Southern African Regional Poverty Network (SARPN), which provided a series of “platforms” for pro-poor policy debates that came to be recognised as a preeminent facilitator of such discussions.

In 2000 he completed his PhD at Cambridge University, which focused on the implementation of the South African land policy in the period 1994–1999.

His research has focused on food security and the role of multiple stressors affecting the well-being of vulnerable groups. Although primarily focused on the AIDS epidemic in recent years, Drimie’s research emphasises threats to achieving food security, enhancing livelihoods and improving environmental management in the developing world. More recently, Drimie has been involved in research focused on pathways between agriculture and livelihood programming and nutrition outcomes.