James F. Oehmke

The people we want most to help in development—the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the vulnerable, the 16-year-old mother of two working a meager 2 acres of land—are marginalized economically, socially, and especially in policy processes. If we could unlock the gates to policy and socio-economic processes, if we could reconstruct these processes to be inclusive, then we could open effective pathways to ending poverty, hunger, thirst, and vulnerability. The policy systems approach to agriculturally led development is a new and innovative approach to build inclusive economic, social and policy systems that empower marginalized populations to gain agency over their destinies and thereby rise out of poverty, rise out of hunger, rise out of thirst and vulnerability.

James F. Oehmke is a senior food security and nutrition policy advisor at the U.S. Agency for International Development and an adjunct professor at Northwestern University. He conducts research on and designs policy systems programming for constructing and implementing complex, multi-stakeholder solutions to development problems. His current research focuses on the economic effects of marginalization, inclusion, cooperation and accountability in development processes. Previously James served as CEO of the George Morris Centre in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. James is a professor emeritus at Michigan State University, where he designed the conceptual framework for the Michigan Background Check Pilot program that became the prototype for the patient protections and background checks in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare. James has a BA in Mathematics and Economics from Yale University and an MA and PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago.