Dr. Luyaku Loko Nsimpasi

Designation Vice President & Public Relations Education Ph.D Email

Dr. Nsimpasi is an international consultant in agriculutre and rural development. He has been working for the last thirty years in the area of agricultural and rural development, and has held managerial and technical positions, working in numerous countries with governments, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), private sector, bilateral and international organizations, in a range of development subject matters.

During his work as a rural development specialist, Dr. Nsimpasi has assisted many Sub-Saharan African countries in the setting up and management of development programs aimed at alleviating poverty, increasing income, improving health, nutrition and food security of the most disadvantaged population group, of which the young girls and women. Luyaku holds a master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Agricultural Economics from the University of Kentucky (UK), Lexington, Kentucky, United States.

Prior to his graduate studies in the United States of America, Luyaku received a bachelor’s degree in Agronomy and Agricultural Economics from the National University of DRC. Dr. Nsimpasi has a large and varied working experience in several countries. He worked in Haiti as a Program Manager-Director from 1994-1996 for the United States of America International Agency for Development (USAID) and CARE international, a United States Non- profit organization.

He worked as an Economist from 1996 to 2000 for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) based in Rome, in charge of a number of African and Pacific Ocean countries. He worked as Country Program Manager from 2000 to 2013 for the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), based in Rome, in charge of a number African countries; and finally, Dr. Nsimpasi worked in Senegal as IFAD Representative and Country Director for Benin, Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal and The Gambia from 2013 to 2017. Furthermore, Dr. Nsimpasi has also worked as consultant for African Development Bank, International Fund for Agricultural Development, World Bank, Canadian International Development Agency, West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development, Care international and Catholic Relieve Services.

Dr. Nsimpasi was a visiting professor at the University of Kinshasa and at the University of Bas Kongo from 1989 to 1993. As a Major Professor, he has directed researches for undergraduate students for the obtention of bachelor’s degree in Rural Economics. Luyaku is the first in line of his nine siblings and lived in a rural small village until the age of 12. Luyaku’s live in the village was very difficult. At the age of 6 years, due to lack of a primary school in the village, Luyaku had to commute each weekend to attend a rural boarding primary school (that only provided room for beds but without food), 20 miles away from his village and thus walked 20 miles each Sunday to go to school carrying on his head food for a week and walked another 20 miles on Saturday back to his village to get the food. At the age of 12, after a highly competitive test, Luyaku was accepted to a secondary school in Kinshasa, at about 100 miles from the village.

Each vacation, Luyaku returned to the village to help his parents on their smallholdings in order for their parents to earn money for his school tuition fees and for other living expenses. Dr. Nsimpasi father and mother were very hard-working farmers who grew crops and raised small animals that were sold in the local market. In spite of their hard work, his parents did not earn enough money from the sale of their produce. They had a very hard time to take care of his secondary school fees and that of his younger brother who was just one year younger than him. For each school year, his parents had to borrow money from people in the village to make sure that his younger brother and him could attend the secondary schools.

His parents had to use their few belongings as collateral to secure the loans and many people in the village laughed at them not understanding why his parents had to remain so poor and sometime nothing to eat, while spending all the money they had hardly earned for the payment of the secondary fees and other living expenses of their two boys. In fact, while Dr. Nsimpasi father had very little elementary education, he knew very well that education was the key for the success of his siblings.

From his childhood, Dr Nsimpasi had embedded the hard-working and work ethics of his parents, that have surely contributed to his success and professional achievements. Luyaku father looked up at his nephew, who was an inspector of the Salvation Army affiliated primary and secondary schools. He asked Luyaku and his younger brother to follow his footsteps. Educationally, Dr. Nsimpasi was indeed inspired by his father nephew school inspector.

On his very recent consultancy work with the AfDB in DRC, Dr. Nsimpasi has seen, witnessed and encountered thousands of young girls largely from poor parents, who are severely malnourished, struggling in their lives and unable to finish their studies, because mainly of lack of financial resources to pay school fees. As a result, a large number of them end up by having children at early age, becoming prostitutes often because they need the money to support their own children and their poor parents.

Furthermore, due to lack of jobs in DRC, the majority of men are currently unemployed, and the women are mainly the ones who often struggle to find ways and means to support the families, by undertaking any kind of work, including petty commerce. Dr. Nsimpasi understands well that any improvement on a sustainable manner of the health, reproductive, food security and nutrition conditions of young girls and women requires an enhancement of their economic power.

Thus, his mission and goal for “All Women’s Maternity International, Inc.”, is To Empower women, teens and young girls, To Equip them to advocate for their health care and reproductive rights and To Educate them. Dr. Nsimpasi hopes that all young girls and women who receive assistance through “All Women’s Maternity International, Inc.”, will gain education and know-how in order not only to determine and declare their own individual choices but also to improve sustainably their economic power allowing them to take care of their needs, and To Effect the right to social change for themselves and other females in the Democratic Republic of Congo.