Dr. Claudia Hiepe is a senior policy officer at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) of Germany, currently working in the Division for Agriculture and Rural Development. An environmental scientist by training, she has more than 20 years of experience in the field of international development policy. Before joining BMZ in 2012, she worked for five years for the UN (FAO, UN-Water) and four years in a transdisciplinary research project about the impacts of global change in West Africa. She is a passionate advocate for nature-based solutions and community-based approaches.