General Assembly (GA)
Main body that takes decisions at the political and strategic level. For each member there are two representatives. The GA takes place twice a year.
Advisory Board
Body composed of 3-6 administrators chosen among the members of the network. The choice of the representatives is based on the gender and geographical balance of the members (Africa, America, Europe). The Board meets once a month.
Executive Secretariat
Body in charge of the administrative, accounting and financial management of the network. It ensures the preparation, follow-up, coordination and execution of the work of the GA, the Board and the working groups (WG). One person is responsible for its management.
Working groups
Bodies gathering the members of Minka interested in contributing to a specific thematic. Each WG group has its own mandate and objectives, and evolve depending on the needs expressed by the network. There are currently 5 WP :
- WP : Gender – Cereals- Resilience
- WP : Climate justice
- WP : Network expansion and partners
- WP : Funding strategy, support and donors
- WP : Advocacy
Vincent Oury
Chairman of the Board
Vincent Oury is the managing director of the NGO Autre Terre (Belgium).
Before joining Autre Terre, he spent ten years coaching and training leaders of social economy organisations in financial management, budget planning, organisational management, project creation and development.
Involved in various social and cultural projects, he holds a master’s degree in management sciences and has been trained in the systemic approach to business and in various collective intelligence tools.
Yaye Mbayang Toure
Board Member
Mbayang is Project Coordinator at FONGS (Senegal).
After obtaining an engineering degree in economic planning and management of organisations, she collaborated with several companies, including ENEA (Ecole Nationale d’Economie Appliquée), UNICEF, and since 2009, FONGS where she is currently in charge of the evaluation department and coordinates the implementation of the NGO’s strategic plan.
Mbayang is also specialised in microfinance and local development.
Geneviève Gauthier
Member of the Board
Geneviève Gauthier is the Senior Director of International Programming at Mission Inclusion (Canada).
Geneviève holds a Master’s degree in International Development from the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) and a Master’s degree in Comparative Women’s Studies in Culture and Politics from the University of Utrecht. She has extensive experience in the field of gender and social inclusion, both in Quebec in the community sector and internationally in the fields of humanitarian action and international development.
She has worked for several NGOs and specialises in responding to and preventing violence against women and girls in humanitarian crises. She has been based in Vietnam, Jordan, Burundi, South Sudan and Yemen, and has been part of emergency response teams where she has developed gender-based violence response services for refugee and displaced women and girls.
Gabrielle Pero
Member of the Board
Gabrielle Pero Makawo Gemengya, is the Executive Director of the Centre National d’Appui au Développement et à la Participation populaire (CENADEP), in the Democratic Republic of Congo, since July 2022. She is the first woman to head this organisation, which has been supporting local communities for over 20 years
She previously worked for the Free University of Kinshasa, before joining CENADEP in 2011, first as a project manager, then as programme officer and programme coordinator.
Gabrielle holds a degree in private and judicial law, and continue to sit at the bar of Kinshasa, as a lawyer.
Paola De Meo
Member of the Board
Paola De Meo, expert in development cooperation and advocacy activities in the field of sustainable agriculture, food systems and human rights is Project manager for Terra Nuova.
She previously served as communication officer and coordinator of thematic working groups for the Civil Society Mechanism for the relations with the UN committee on World Food Security. Other collaborations include teaching and organizing trainings for US and Italian universities, such as SIT Study Abroad/IHP: Rethinking Food Security: Agriculture, People, and Politics and Roma Three University where she was responsible of structuring trainings, and supervising thesis and research assignments for the master’s in Human development and Food Security.She worked as a consultant for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and currently with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Camille Rouaud
Coordinator Minka
Camille is the Coordinator of the Minka network since July 2020.
Before joining Minka, she worked for several NGOs and UN agencies in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the United States. She has been based in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso, India and Peru.
Her areas of expertise include international development programme management, organisational and team coordination, project development, governance and elections and women’s participation.
Camille also sits on the French National Right of Asylum Court (CNDA) for the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as an assessor.
Marc Mees
Agro-ecology and capitalization expert
Marc is an agronomist by training and has spent most of his career with SOS Faim Belgium, where he worked mainly in the partner support department and in knowledge management. For SOS Faim, he coordinated the writing of the magazines Zoom Microfinance and Dynamiques Paysannes.
Marc is also one of FOGAL’s representatives in MINKA and contributes to the network’s knowledge sharing and capitalisation dynamics.
Its main areas of expertise are: agricultural finance, agroecology, territorial development and programme evaluation.