Jimmy Wilson Smith

Jimmy W. Smith, is a dual citizen of Canada and Guyana. In February 2023, he was appointed Director of International Programs in the College of Agriculture & Natural Resources at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA. In this capacity he oversees the international research, extension, training, and other development efforts of the College.

Previously, Dr. Smith served as Director General of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), a position he assumed in October 2011 and held until December, 2022. ILRI (www.ilri.org) is an international research organization in the family of CGIAR Centres working towards a food secure world. ILRI’s work focuses on livestock research for sustainable development.

Before joining ILRI, Smith worked for the World Bank, in Washington, DC, where he led the Bank’s Global Livestock Portfolio. Working at the corporate level, he anchored the bank’s investments of over one billion USD on sustainable livestock development, and mitigating the threat of zoonotic diseases with pandemic potential.

Prior to his tenure at the World Bank, Smith held senior positions at the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). At CIDA, he was responsible for the Agency’s bilateral and multilateral support for agriculture and rural development, including its partnerships with FAO, IFAD, WFP and the CGIAR. Still earlier in his career, Smith worked at ILRI and its predecessor, the International Livestock Centre for Africa (ILCA), where he served as the institute’s regional representative for West Africa and later as director of its global program on crop-livestock-natural resource integration involving 10 CGIAR Centres. Before his decade of work at ILCA/ILRI, Smith held senior positions in the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI-Trinidad) and the Livestock Development Company (LIDCO-Guyana).

Jimmy Smith is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urban-Champaign, USA, where he completed MSc and PhD degrees in animal sciences. He is widely published, with more than 100 publications, including papers in refereed journals, book chapters, policy papers and edited proceedings.