Cathy Watson is chief of program development at World Agroforestry in Nairobi. Before joining in November 2012, she founded and ran two NGOs in Uganda -Straight Talk Foundation and Mvule Trust. She was made a senior Ashoka fellow in 2006. A graduate in biology and Latin American Studies from Princeton, she has worked for over 30 years in Africa with a focus on trees, reproductive health, families, and communication for social change.

She has a particular interest in landscape restoration and the creation of livelihoods for youth. She has a graduate qualification in agroforestry from the University of Missouri. She has also been a foreign correspondent, working for the BBC among others. She continues to contribute to The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/profile/cathy-watson