Dr. Eliud Birachi is a research scientist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) working in Africa as a market economist since 2008. Prior to coming to CIAT, Dr. Birachi was a Lecturer in the Department of Agricultural Economics & Business Management at Egerton University, Kenya. He holds a PhD in Agribusiness, University of Kiel, Germany and an MSc in Agricultural Economics and Management from Wageningen University, Netherlands, and a bachelor of Agribusiness degree from Egerton University, Kenya. His research interest are in linking farmers to markets and especially through farmer collective efforts, value chain analyses and markets research, as well as gender mainstreaming of market access work. Recent work focuses on agricultural commercialization, gender empowerment and rural employment in agricultural dependent systems. He has managed a number of projects in Africa and is currently the FATE project coordinator and lead researcher in Rwanda.