Senior Economist
Inclusive Rural Transformation and Gender Division
FAO

Dr. Peter Wobst is a Senior Economist at the Economic and Social Development Stream of FAO, heading the organization’s technical team working on Decent Rural Employment over the last decade. He is responsible for coordinating the interlinked work areas on youth employment, green jobs, rural labour migration, and child labour in agriculture within the context of the Decent Work Agenda and the realm of FAO’s mandate on food security, poverty reduction and natural resource management. Before joining FAO, he worked at DG Enterprise and Industry of the European Commission in Brussels on the assessment of structural reforms under the EU Lisbon Strategy and the ex-ante analysis of the EU energy and climate change package. Prior to this, he worked with the Institute for Prospective Technology Studies (DG JRC) of the European Commission in Seville on agricultural, food industry, and rural development issues in the European context. Between 1997 and 2005, Peter has worked for the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington where his research focused on macroeconomics and international trade, agricultural sector development, intersectoral linkages, infrastructure improvements, market integration, and the impact of rural development on income distribution and poverty. He has worked extensively with dynamic simulation models for policy impact assessment and was involved in capacity development efforts mainly in sub-Saharan African countries, including collaborative research, training, and teaching. Peter, a national of Germany, holds a Ph.D. (summa cum laude) from the University of Hohenheim, Germany, and an M.Sc. in Economics from the University of Bonn, Germany.