Dr. Zena Mpenda is the Head of Department of Trade and Investment (DTI) in the College of Economics and Business Studies (CoEBS), SUA. She has more than 20 years of experience in research and consultancy. Majored in economics of food safety standards in agro-food exports for developing countries. With that knowledge, she worked and conduct consultancies assisting SMEs in product development and processing specifically on dairy products, cooking oil, fish and vegetables; understand and build SMEs internal competences, marketing and market competition. She also consulted and researched in the fields of agro-processing; international food standards; tariff and non-tariff barriers in east African SMEs faced when exporting to the UK processed value added goods; waste management; value chain development and upgrading in maize, paddy rice, wheat, cashew nut, sunflower and cassava.
Dr. Zena is a member of Regional Network of Agricultural Policy Research Institutes (ReNAPRI), She have gained relevant in a multi-disciplinary area including value chain studies, agricultural policy, commodity investment and private sector development. I have led country teams in conducting agricultural policy research especially in agricultural marketing producing policy briefs hither to on Nile Perch fish, maize, rice, wheat, poultry, oilseeds (sunflower and palm) and cassava commodity markets. The policy researches were conducted in collaboration with nine other African countries, under the ReNAPRI. In addition to that, she have been involved in developing commodity investment plans for rice, maize and sunflower; investment plans for smallholder coffee farmers in Kigoma.