Conference Paper Author Biographies

Short biographies of each of the authors that prepared papers specifically for the Asia 2015 conference.

Stephen Bass is Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). He is a forester and environmental scientist with 25 years experience, principally in Southern Africa, Southern Asia and the Caribbean, and in international processes. He is currently researching the links between poverty reduction and environmental management, and has published several books on sustainable development and forest management (http://www.iied.org/pubs/). Until recently, Stephen was Chief Environment Adviser at DFID. He was awarded the Queen's Award for Forestry in 2001 for services to international initiatives.

Dr Priya Deshingkar is a Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute in London. She is a social scientist and has worked extensively on rural livelihoods and poverty reduction in Asia and Africa. Her work has continuously sought to relate ground level realities to high-level policy dialogue. Her recent work has been on labour migration, livelihood diversification, tribal livelihoods, forestry, agriculture and livestock.

John Farrington is a Research Fellow in the ODI Rural Policy and Governance Group. He has worked extensively in southern Africa, Latin America, and most recently South and Southeast Asia. His work initially focused on the management of technical change in agriculture, and institutions for participation and citizenship at local level. Current interests include rural livelihood diversification, the design of social protection mechanisms and the interface between social protection and the productive sectors.

Ricardo Gottschalk is a Fellow of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). He is an economist with long-term work (in Brazil's government) and research experience. Currently working on capital flows to developing countries; reform of the international financial architecture (incl. implementation of codes and standards in developing countries); external financial needs of developing economies; the sequencing of capital account liberalisation; the macroeconomic content of PRSPs; macroeconomic policies in Latin America and their interactions with poverty and inequality; macroeconomic management in Latin America in response to China's demand for LA primary commodities; has worked as consultant to the governments of various sub-Saharan African countries, including Mozambique, Tanzania and South Africa. Currently providing technical support for the Ministry of Finance of Ethiopia on statistical analysis for forecasting.

Stephany Griffith-Jones is a Professorial Fellow at the Institute of develoment Studies. She has written widely on private capital flows to developing countries and transition economies, financial crises and reform of the international financial system, as well as macroeconomic issues, both globally and nationally. Her current research projects include analysis of financial systems in Asia. She has advised many international institutions and governments. Most recently she has worked on the UN WESS 2005 Report on Financing for Development. For this and other documents, see www.stephanygj.com

Malcolm Jack joined Homeless International after completing his MA in Economics and International Relations from the University of St Andrews and his MSc in Project Planning and Management from the University of Bradford. He currently co-ordinates Homeless International's portfolio of grants with partner organisations across Asia and Africa, and also co-ordinates the Urban Poverty Group (a network of NGOs, university departments and consultants in the UK with a shared commitment to addressing the challenges of urban poverty worldwide). He co-authored the chapter ‘Influencing urban development through “pragmatic advocacy”: the case of Homeless International', published in ‘Practitioners and Poverty Alleviation – Influencing urban policy from the ground up' edited by Nici Nelson and Sue Jones; has co-written research papers including a feasibility study ‘for the application of Community-Led Infrastructure Finance Facility (CLIFF) operations in Ghana' (downloadable at www.homeless-international.org/ump); and is currently writing two chapters for ‘Bridging the finance gap', a book examining experiences in scaling-up financing for community-driven housing and infrastructure developments.

Stephen Jones has more than 15 years' experience managing and undertaking consultancy and research on a wide range of international development issues. He has worked in more than 25 countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Pacific. His main areas of expertise include development aid and development strategies, the private sector and markets, trade policy and agricultural policy. His published research includes studies on agricultural marketing policy and the development and application of sector wide approaches. His recent work has focused on the reform and evaluation of development aid, and the policy and institutional environment for private sector development. He is a Research Associate of Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.

Anuradha Joshi is a Research Fellow in Governance at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). She is a social scientist with a focus on public policy and experience in institutional analysis. She has worked on issues of poverty, low income housing, basic services and environmental policy in India and Ghana. Her current research focuses on collective action and service delivery in urban settings. She currently co-convenes the Masters course in Governance and Development at IDS.

Naila Kabeer is Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies. She is a social economist and has had over 20 years experience in teaching, training, research and advisory work in the fields of poverty, gender, livelihoods and social policy. She is currently working on questions of social exclusion and citizenship with the Development Research Centre on Citizenship at the Institute of Development Studies and on a book on gender and social protection for the Commonwealth Secretariat and DFID. Her most recent book was ‘Mainstreaming gender and poverty eradication in the Millennium Development Goals', published by the Commonwealth Secretariat and the IDRC.

Simon Maxwell is Director of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), the UK 's leading independent think-tank on international development and humanitarian issues. He is an economist who, prior to joining ODI in 1997, worked overseas for ten years, in Kenya and India for UNDP, and in Bolivia for UKODA; and then for 16 years at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), latterly as Programme Manager for the Poverty, Food Security and the Environment programme. He writes extensively on development, poverty and aid.

Lauren Phillips is Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute in the International Economic Development Group. She is an international political economist, and recently completed a PhD at the London School of Economics on political risk and financial market performance in Latin America. She is currently researching topics related to governance reform of the International Financial Institutions, financial market contagion and stability, and the impact of middle income countries on low income countries.

Hossain Zillur Rahman has degrees in Economics (Masters, Dhaka University, 1976) and Political Sociology (Ph.D, University of Manchester, 1986). Leading researcher at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (1977-2000), he founded the Power and Participation Research Centre, Dhaka in 1996 and is currently its Executive Chairman. He is a Commissioner of the Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation and is currently Lead Consultant in the preparation of Bangladesh PRSP. He has co-authored Re-Thinking Rural Poverty (Sage, 1995) and Local Governance and Community Capacities (UPL, 2002). He is an active player on civil society issues and is the coordinator of the Local Government Support Group and the Shushikkha Andolon. Email contact: hzillur@bdonline.com

Mark Robinson is a Research Fellow and Governance Team Leader at the Institute of Development Studies (m.robinson@ids.ac.uk). He is a political sociologist with 18 years of research, teaching and operational experience in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Mark previously worked in India for the Ford Foundation as Programme Officer for Governance and Civil Society and as a Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute. Broad areas of research expertise include governance, democracy and civil society, with particular interests in state capacity and the politics of governance reform.

Paul Steele is an environmental economist focusing on political analysis and currently based at the Institute of Policy Studies in Sri Lanka. He was for four years the environment economics advisor to the Department for International Development. Previously he was the environmental economics advisor to the Ministry of
Environment, Sri Lanka. He jointly founded the UK based Economics for the Environment Consultancy (EFTEC) Ltd. He has worked extensively throughout Asia and Africa on pro-poor environmental change and published widely on poverty environment issues.