Anna Toness

Anna Toness, Ph.D., is a Senior Specialist in Agriculture and Rural Development at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and an agrifood systems practitioner with more than 25 years of experience across Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe. Her work brings together food security, agricultural research and innovation, markets and finance, and climate resilience to build more productive, inclusive, and sustainable agrifood systems.

At the IDB, Anna leads and advises investments across Latin America and the Caribbean and is advancing innovative financing approaches, including blended finance, guarantees, and other de-risking instruments, to mobilize public and private capital into agriculture, climate resilience, and natural capital. She also represents the IDB on the Climate Bonds Initiative Resilience Taxonomy Advisory Group Technical Subgroup, helping advance frameworks for identifying and financing credible climate-resilience investments.

Before joining the IDB, Anna held senior leadership positions with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where she led Feed the Future agriculture, food security, and resilience portfolios in Washington, Malawi, Zambia, and Brazil. Her work included agricultural research and innovation, market and value-chain development, climate-smart agriculture, and private-sector partnerships, as well as designing and advising blended-finance and impact-investment approaches for agriculture, adaptation, biodiversity, and natural capital.

She holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Education and an M.S. in Forestry.