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Catherine Bertini, professor of public administration and chair of the international relations program at SU’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, will speak this week at the (IRP). Bertini will discuss the impact of hunger and poverty on national policies, and the importance of addressing these issues in U.S. government policy. The program is free and open to the public. IRP meets from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. at First Baptist Church of Syracuse, 5833 E. Seneca Turnpike, Jamesville.

Following more than a decade of service to the United Nations, Bertini joined the faculty of the Maxwell School in 2005 as professor of public administration. She teaches courses in humanitarian action, UN management, girls’ education and post-conflict reconstruction, drawing on the vast experience she gained during her years of leadership in public sector management, international organizations, humanitarian relief, nutrition policy and agricultural development.

Bertini’s career spans public service at international, national, state and local levels and includes private sector and foundation experience. She was the driving force behind reform of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), where she was the chief executive for 10 years. During her tenure, WFP’s institutional changes in the area of efficiency, effectiveness and accountability were cited by the United States government and the 36-government board of WFP as a model of UN reform.

She has received honorary degrees from several universities worldwide. Bertini is the 2003 World Food Prize Laureate and was awarded the Gene White Lifetime Achievement Award for Child Nutrition in 2007. She is a member of two US AID advisory committees, a board member of the Stuart Family Foundation, a juror of the Hilton Foundation Humanitarian Prize, and serves on a number of advisory boards and foundations. Currently, she is co-chair of the Global Agriculture Development Initiative for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and chair of the council’s Girls in Rural Economies project.

For more information on this program, call University College of Syracuse University at (315) 443-4846.