Biographies of Speakers

BIOGRAPHIES OF CHAIRPERSONS, PRESENTERS, AND COMMENTATORS

Vice President and Head of Network, World Bank.

After serving as the World Bank’s country director for Tanzania and Uganda since the 1980s, James Adams was appointed its vice president for Operational Policy and Country Services (OPCS) in 2002. He first joined the World Bank in 1974 and has been noted for a commitment to poverty reduction and a pragmatic approach to development programs.

Ambassador at Large in charge of Social and Parity Issues, France.

Holding a Doctorate in Law degree, Nicole Ameline has served as Secretary of State for Decentralization in 1995, under the first government of Alain Juppé, in which she notably worked on the signature agreement of the Financial Stability Pact between the State and local authorities. Nicole Ameline was Secretary of State for Maritime Affairs from May to June 2002, under the first government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin. She then assumed the position of Minister Delegate for Parity and Equality in the Workplace from June 2002 to March 2004, and then Minister of Parity and Equality in the Workplace until May 2005. In this capacity, Madam Ameline represented France at the Beijing + 10 Conference in February 2005. Nicole Ameline is now Ambassador at Large in charge of Social and Parity issues in international affairs. She represents the French government at the Executive Council of the International Labour Organization.

Joyce Banda

Minister of Women, Child Welfare and Community Services, Malawi.

Minister Joyce Banda is a dynamic business woman and a community activist. She is also the president of the Southern African Sub-Region Women Ministers and Parliamentarians Network. Minister Banda founded the National Association of Business Women of Malawi (NABW) in order to boost the status of women - by giving them access to credit, training, information, markets and appropriate technology. So far, NABW has mobilized 15,000 women countrywide, disbursed US$2,000,000 in loans, and trained 12,000 women to run their own businesses.

Minister Banda was awarded the prestigious “Africa Prize for Leadership for the Sustainable End of Hunger,” a recognition shared with President Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique, in 1997. This prize was used by Minister Banda as the seed fund for the establishment of the Joyce Banda Foundation. Minister Banda has also received several international and national awards.

Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, World Bank.

Francois Bourguignon is internationally recognized as an intellectual leader in the economics of public policy, inequality and economic growth and development. He became Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank in October 2003.

Bourguignon was previously Director of the Development Research Group (a part of the Development Economics Vice Presidency) and managing editor of the World Bank Economic Review. He has served as an advisor to many developing countries, the OECD, the United Nations, and the European Commission and was a member of the Council of Economic Advisors to the French Prime Minister. Since 1985 he has been Professor of Economics at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, where he founded and directed the DELTA research unit in theoretical and applied economics. He has held academic positions with the University of Chile, Santiago, and the University of Toronto. He is also a Fellow of the Econometric Society. A French national, Bourguignon has authored and edited several books as well as numerous articles in leading international journals in economics.

Richard Carey

Deputy Director, Development Co-operation Directorate of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Richard Carey has been Deputy Director of the Development Co-operation Directorate of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) since 1980. He has been responsible for strategic policy analysis on a wide range of development-related economic and political issues as well as the monitoring and evaluation of aid efforts in the context of the work of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and, during its existence, the OECD’s Group on North-South Economic Issues.

Over the last decade, Richard Carey has been closely associated with the DAC Peer Reviews and with the evolution of new approaches to development co-operation including: the international development goals (the foundation for the Millennium Development Goals); the partnership principle (shifting from donor-driven policies and modalities to developing country policy frameworks and implementation processes); and policy coherence (requiring OECD governments to better identify and coordinate policies impacting developing countries). He is also currently co-leading preparations for a new process of “Mutual Review of Development Effectiveness in Africa,” in conjunction with the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

Prior to joining the OECD, Richard Carey was a senior policy adviser in the New Zealand Treasury and from 1977-1980 was Deputy Permanent Representative and Economic Counsellor in the New Zealand Delegation to the OECD.

Shantayanan Devarajan

Chief Economist, South Asia Region, World Bank.

Shantayanan Devarajan is the Chief Economist of the World Bank’s South Asia Region, and Editor of the World Bank Research Observer.  Since joining the World Bank in 1991, he has been a Principal Economist and Research Manager for Public Economics in the Development Research Group, as well as the Chief Economist of the Human Development Network. He was the Director of the World Development Report 2004, Making Services Work for Poor People.

Before 1991, Mr. Devarajan was on the faculty of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. The author or co-author of over 100 publications, Mr. Devarajan’s research covers public economics, trade policy, natural resources and the environment, and general-equilibrium modeling of developing countries.  Born in Sri Lanka, Mr. Devarajan received his A. B. in mathematics from Princeton University and his Ph. D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Jennifer Lynn Dorn

Alternate Executive Director, U.S., World Bank.

Jennifer L. Dorn is the U.S. Alternate Executive Director to the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank Group in Washington, DC. She represents the US government as the largest shareholder on the Board of Directors.

Previous to this appointment, she served as the Administrator of the Federal

Transit Administration (FTA) - one of six operating administrations in the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).  As Federal Transit Administrator, Ms. Dorn led a 500-person agency that provided over $7 billion in financial assistance each year to develop new transit systems, and to improve, maintain, and operate hundreds of existing transit systems throughout the United States.  This is Ms. Dorn's fourth Presidential appointment.  She served as the Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Labor under President George H.W. Bush, and as the Associate Deputy Secretary of Transportation at DOT under President Reagan.  From 1991 to 1998, Ms. Dorn served as Senior Vice President of the American National Red Cross, overseeing the organization's international operations, fundraising, communications, and marketing.

Ms. Dorn is a graduate of Oregon State University.  She received a Master's Degree in Public Administration from the University of Connecticut.  She has two sons -- Benjamin, age 13 and Jonathan, age 15.

John Gagain

Executive Director, Presidential Commission on the MDGs, Dominican Republic.

Mr. John R. Gagain Jr. was named by Dr. Leonel Fernandez, President of the Dominican Republic as the Executive Director of the Presidential Commission on the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development (COPDES) in September 2004. The COPDES is the first Presidential Commission ever to be established for monitoring and evaluating a country’s achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Before COPDES, Mr. Gagain served as Director of the Center for the Study of Globalization and was Representative to International Organizations at the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development, an international research-based non-governmental organization based in the Dominican Republic, which was founded by Dr. Leonel Fernández, Constitutional President of the Dominican Republic. Mr. Gagain was responsible for the Foundation’s projects, courses, and literature on Globalization as well as its relations with institutions including the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Additionally, Mr. Gagain was the Executive Vice-President of the United Nations Association of the Dominican Republic (UNA-DR). Mr. Gagain was responsible for administration of the Association’s finances and development. Mr. Gagain was the Coordinator of Model United Nations at the United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA), where he was editor of the Association’s Educational Publications, including the annual Guide to Delegate Preparation.

Mr. Gagain attended Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), where he focused on International Economic Policy with a concentration in International Trade and Latin American Studies. He has written recommendations on U.S. foreign economic policy for Ambassador Richard Gardner, former economic advisor to Al Gore and member of the Clinton Administration’s Advisory Council on Trade Policy and Negotiations (ACTPN).

Anne Marie Goetz

Chief Advisor, Governance, Peace and Security, UNIFEM.

Anne Marie Goetz is Chief Advisor, Governance, Peace and Security at UNIFEM.

Prior to joining UNIFEM in 2005, she was a Professor of Political Science at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.  She is a political scientist who has specialized in the study of gender and governance in development.  She has researched the conditions under which marginalized social groups, including women can become more effective in advancing social change agendas once they occupy public office. Professor Goetz has also worked on pro-poor and gender-sensitive approaches to public sector reforms, anti-corruption initiatives, and decentralization, and has also studied means of supporting political liberalization and state-building in fragile states and post-conflict situations.

Professor Goetz is the author of five books on the subjects of gender and politics in developing countries, and on accountability reforms - the latest book, co-authored with Rob Jenkins, is Reinventing Accountability:  Making Democracy Work for Human Development (Palgrave, 2005). Professor Goetz has engaged in a wide range of advisory work related to gender, democratization, and governance, including direct advisory work for developing country governments, for multilateral economic institutions and bilateral donors, and for NGOs.

Caren Grown

Senior Scholar and Co-director of the Gender Equality and the Economy Program, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.

Her current research focuses on gender equality, public finance, and international trade and investment. Previously, Dr. Grown directed the Poverty Reduction and Economic Governance team at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), where  she worked on a range of issues related to gender and poverty. During her term at ICRW, she served as Senior Associate of Task Force 3 of the UN Millennium Project on gender equality and women's empowerment. From 1992-2001, she was a Senior Program Officer at the John D. and Catherine MacArthur Foundation in Chicago, Illinois, where she managed research networks and competitions on a wide range of economic, governance, and population issues.  Before joining the MacArthur Foundation, Dr. Grown was an economist with the Center for Economic Studies at the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

She has edited and authored several books and numerous articles on gender equality.

Her most recent publication (co-edited with Elissa Braunstein and Anju Malhotra) is

Trading Women's Health and Rights: The Role of Trade Liberalization and Development (Zed Books 2006). She is the lead author (with Geeta Rao Gupta) of Taking Action:  Achieving Gender Equality and Empowering Women (Earthscan Press 2005) and coauthor (with Gita Sen) of Development, Crises and Alternative Visions: Third World Women's Perspectives (Monthly Review Press 1987). She has guest co-edited three special issues of World Development on macroeconomics, international trade, and gender inequality, and has written widely on gender and development issues.

Geeta Rao Gupta

President of the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW).

Dr. Geeta Rao Gupta is the President of the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), a leading global authority on women’s role in development, and passionate advocate for women’s empowerment and the protection and fulfillment of women’s human rights. She has worked at ICRW as a consultant, researcher and officer since 1988, and has headed the private, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. since 1997. Dr. Gupta is an internationally renowned expert on women and HIV/AIDS, and is frequently consulted on issues related to AIDS prevention and women’s vulnerability to HIV. She has been recognized for her commitment to quality research, her dedication to educating policy makers and the public on the gender-related aspects of HIV/AIDS, and her abiding commitment and overall contributions to the field. 

Apart from her work on HIV/AIDS, Dr. Gupta serves as a board member for InterAction and the Moriah Fund. In addition, she serves as an advisor to the UNAIDS Global Coalition on Women and AIDS, and co-chairs the U.N. Millennium Project’s Task Force on promoting gender equality and empowering women. Dr. Gupta has a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Bangalore University, a Master of Philosophy degree from the University of Delhi, and both a Master and Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Delhi.

Peter Heller

Deputy Director, Fiscal Affairs Department International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Dr. Heller is the Deputy Director of the Fiscal Affairs Department of the International Monetary Fund. He has a PhD in Economics from Harvard University. Since beginning work at the Fund in 1977, he has worked on fiscal policy issues in countries as diverse as China, India, Somalia, Thailand, Japan, Ethiopia, Korea, Kenya, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Bosnia, Slovenia, and Russia. He has published extensively on issues relating to fiscal policy, economic development and poverty reduction, aging populations, public expenditure policy, health care reforms in developing countries, pension and civil service reform, climate change, privatization, and globalization. In recent years, he participated in the World Health Organization's Commission for Macroeconomics and Health and the Millennium Task Force of the United Nations.

Dr. Heller is the author of Who Will Pay? Coping with Aging Societies, Climate Change and other Long-Term Fiscal Challenges, a book published in 2003 by the International Monetary Fund. More recently he has written on issues of fiscal space; on the challenges that will need to be met by donors and aid-recipient countries in effectively using scaled-up aid flows for achieving the MDGs; and on the dimensions of the long-term challenges faced by industrial countries in the context of aging populations and climate change.

Noeleen Heyzer

Executive Director, United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

Dr. Heyzer is the first Executive Director from the South to head UNIFEM, the leading operational agency within the United Nations to promote women's empowerment and gender equality. Since joining UNIFEM, Dr. Heyzer has worked on strengthening women's economic security and rights in the context of feminized poverty and globalization; promoting women's leadership in conflict resolution, peace-building and reconstruction; ending violence against women; and combating HIV/AIDS from a gender perspective.

Previously, Dr. Heyzer was the policy adviser to Asian governments and was instrumental in the formulation of national development policies, strategies and programs from a gender perspective. In 1994-95 she played a key role in the preparatory process for the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, including organizing 1,000 NGOs in the Asia Pacific region to develop the first ever NGO Action Plan.

Dr. Heyzer has been a founding member of numerous regional and international women's networks.  She has published extensively on gender and development issues, especially economic globalization, international migration and trafficking, gender and trade, and women, peace and security.

Joanna Kerr

Executive Director, Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID).

Joanna Kerr is the Executive Director of the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) in Toronto, Canada. AWID is an international membership organization connecting, informing and mobilizing almost 6,000 people and 150 organizations committed to achieving gender equality, sustainable development and women's human rights. Previously she was a Senior Researcher at The North-South Institute in Ottawa where she managed the gender program for almost seven years. She created the Gender and Economic Reforms in Africa (GERA) Program --an African action research initiative to influence economic policies from a gender perspective, now hosted by Third World Network Africa.

Joanna Kerr holds an MA in Gender and Development from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. She has experience in policy research, participatory research, advocacy, gender training, project management and monitoring, writing and public speaking on issues related to women’s human rights, the gender dimensions of economic reform, trade and investment, organizational development and leadership, and women's employment issues. She is on the editorial board of Oxfam’s Gender and Development, the Chair of the Board of Gender at Work Collaborative, and part of the governance of several international civil society advocacy initiatives. Some of her publications include The Future of Women’s Rights: Global Visions and Strategies (2004, ZED press), edited with Ellen Sprenger and Alison Symington; Demanding Dignity: Women Confronting Economic Reforms in Africa (2001), edited with Dzodzi Tsikata; The Gender Dimensions of Economic Reforms in Africa, edited with Lynn Brown (1997); Gender and Jobs in China's New Economy, co-authored with Julie Delahanty (1996); and Ours by Right: Women's Rights as Human Rights (1993), published by ZED press.

William Kingsmill

Head, Growth and Investment Group, Department for International Development (DFID), U.K.

William Kingsmill has recently been appointed as Head of DFID's Growth and Investment Group, based in London.  Previously he was Head of DFID's office in Nigeria.  Previous posts he has held in DFID have included Head of Private Sector Policy Department and Head of Economic Policy and Research Department. He has worked for DFID in the Caribbean and in East Africa.  He has also worked for the European Commission, working on the design and implementation of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, and for the Government of Botswana as an Economic Adviser.

Geoffrey Lamb

Vice President, World Bank.

Mr. Lamb is responsible for mobilization of concessional finance for IDA, GEF, HIPC, various trust funds, and grants and also managing a broad spectrum of programs related to global partnerships and policies. The units under his lead include Resource Mobilization, Multilateral Trustee Operations, Trust Fund Operations, and Global Programs and Partnerships, under which falls the Development Grant Facility (which he chairs). He leads policy negotiations and replenishment processes for IDA, GEF and HIPC and is responsible for institutional linkages and dialogue with official bilateral and multilateral development agencies, export credit agencies and others. He also manages the organization's strategic approach to partnerships. He sits on the Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, representing the World Bank as trustee of the Global Fund. Mr. Lamb is the chairman of the Board of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, a public-private partnership supporting research and development to find a safe and effective AIDS vaccine.

An Irish national born in South Africa, Mr. Lamb held senior development research and academic positions, notably as Fellow and Deputy Director of the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex, where he obtained his Ph.D. in Political Science and Development Administration. He joined the Bank in 1980 and has held a number of operational, strategy and policy positions in the World Bank. He has worked extensively in countries in Asia, Africa, Europe including the former Soviet Union, and the Middle East.

Danny Leipziger

Vice President and Head of Network, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (PREM), World Bank.

Mr. Leipziger provides strategic leadership and direction for the Bank's work on economic policy formulation in the areas of growth and poverty, debt, trade, gender, and public sector management and governance.  He is heavily involved in positioning the Bank on major economic policy issues and in managing the Bank’s overall interactions on these issues with key partner institutions including the IMF, DAC, the regional development banks and the European Union. He previously held managerial positions in Latin America and the Caribbean Region, at the World Bank Institute and in the East Asia Region. Career highlights include leading the Bank's financial relief efforts in Korea, managing the program of bank restructuring in Argentina, and opening the economic dialogue with Vietnam.

Mr. Leipziger, a Ph.D. in Economics from Brown University, has written extensively on development economics and finance, and has lectured widely on industrial policy, financial crisis management and development experience. He has authored several books on East Asia and Korea, including Lessons from East Asia (University of Michigan, 1997), Preventing Banking Crisis (1998), and Chile: Policy Lessons (1999). Recent published work has dealt with Argentina's Currency Board, Industrial Policies in Mercosur, Privatization of Infrastructure Services, and Moral Hazard Behavior in International Lending.  Mr. Leipziger previously served in the Economic Bureau and Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. Department of State, as well as in USAID.

Rachel Mayanja

Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, United Nations.

Ms. Rachel Mayanja, the Secretary-General’s new Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, is a long-serving career international civil servant with vast experience in normative, policy and operational work of the United Nations, including peace-building, peace-keeping and inter-agency collaboration.

Ms. Mayanja’s career with the UN started in the Women’s Division shortly after the first World Conference in Mexico in the midst of sensitization of the world to women’s right to equality, development and peace. As Secretary to the drafting committee of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, she was actively involved in the establishment of this landmark legal instrument. 

Ms. Mayanja actively participated in peace-building and peace-keeping missions and therefore possesses an understanding of the suffering created by conflicts and the challenges facing the UN in such situations.  This first hand knowledge is essential in her role as the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser, especially in the area of women, peace and security.  Ms Mayanja, a national of Uganda, obtained a law degree from Makarere University, as well as a Master’s Degree in Law from the Harvard University Law School. She has three children.

Mahmoud Mohieldin

Minister of Investment, Egypt.

Dr. Mohieldin is the Minister of Investment for the Arab Republic of Egypt, a newly established Ministry responsible for Investment Policy, Management of state-owned assets including privatization and restructuring of public enterprises, joint ventures, and the non-banking financial services including capital market, insurance, and mortgage finance. He is also a Member of the General Secretariat of the National Democratic Party; a member of the Policies Secretariat; and was the Chairman of Economic Committee of the Party. He is currently a Member of the Board of Benha University.

Dr. Mohieldin has served as an Economic Advisor to the Minister of State for Economic Affairs; Senior Economic Advisor to the Minister of Economy & Foreign Trade; and Senior Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Trade. Dr. Mohieldin has published several papers and studies in the areas of Financial Economics, Financial Reform, Prudential Regulation, Trade in Services, Globalization, Exchange Rate and Monetary Policies, Corporate Governance and Competition Policy. He is a Member of the Arab Society for Economic Research; Senior Research Associate of the Economic Research Forum of the Arab Countries, Iran and Turkey; Member of Middle East Studies Association of North America; Fellow of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, UK; Member of the Royal Economic Society, UK; and Member of the Egyptian Society for Political Economy, Cairo.

Dr. Mohieldin was born in Egypt in 1965. He received his B.Sc in Economics, with highest Honors, First in Order of Merit from Cairo University. He holds a Master of Science in Economic and Social Policy Analysis from University of York, England and a Ph.D. in Economics from University of Warwick, England.

Hawa Musa

Advisor, Ministry of Development and Economic Planning, Sierra Leone.

Ms. Musa has been a Senior Development and Planning Officer at the Ministry of Development and Economic Planning since July 1999. She is involved in planning, monitoring and evaluating the Government of Sierra Leone UNICEF country programs and social sector programs. She is also involved in coordinating the strategic planning process in the Ministry of Education, Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs in 2001, preparation of the Beijing plus five report and the Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (I-PRSP).

Ms. Musa has participated and assisted in the coordination for the preparation of six thematic studies for the Preparation of a National Action Plan on Poverty Alleviation: Agriculture and the Poor; Income Generation and the Poor; Macro-Economic Policy and the Poor; Social Safety Nets; War Displacement and the Poor; and Environmental Concerns and Cultural Dimensions.

Yoshio Okubo

Japan’s Executive Director, World Bank.

At the Ministry of Finance and at the Financial Services Agency, Mr. Okubo’s many positions included Deputy Vice-Minister for International Affairs; Deputy Commissioner for Capital Markets; and Head of the International Bureau’s Development Institutions Division. Mr. Okubo has been one of Japan’s leading interlocutors on bilateral financial, regulatory and macroeconomic issues, and played a substantial role in the supervision and restructuring of the Japanese financial system, particularly in capital markets areas.

Mr. Okubo received his undergraduate degree in Economics and Business Administration from the University of Tokyo, Japan and a graduate degree in Economics from Harvard University, U.S.

Ing Kantha Phavi

Minister of Women’s Affairs, Cambodia

H.E. Dr. Phavi was appointed Minister of Women’s Affairs in July 2004 following the formation of the new government. She has also just recently been appointed as Deputy High Commissioner for the Supreme Council for State Reform.

Prior to becoming Minister, Dr Phavi served as Secretary of State of Women’s and Veterans’ Affairs for five years, where she was in charge of elaborating gender-responsive policies, strategies and plans of action and ensuring the management and follow-up of technical programs in health and economic empowerment and the capacity building program of the Ministry of Women’s and Veterans’ Affairs (MWVA) staff on financial and administrative management. She was an active contributor in several international and national fora on gender mainstreaming in reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, and women’s economic empowerment. She was directly involved in the National Poverty Reduction Strategy drafting process. She also served as Technical Advisor to the Ministry of Rural Development in community health from 1995 to 1997. 

Dr. Phavi’s father was the former ambassador of Cambodia to Japan and the Minister of Public Works. Dr. Phavi practiced medicine in France in the 1990’s.

Judith Rodin

President, The Rockefeller Foundation

In 1994, Dr. Judith Rodin became the first woman named to the presidency of an Ivy League institution - The University of Pennsylvania.  After completing her Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1970, Rodin joined the faculty of New York University as an assistant professor of psychology. She moved to Yale in 1972, was promoted to associate professor in 1975, named a full professor of psychology in 1979, and added the title of professor of medicine and psychiatry in 1985. Prior to her appointment as Yale’s provost in 1992, she served two years as chair of the department of psychology and one year as dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Rodin serves on the boards of the Brookings Institution and Catalyst, and on the boards of AMR Corporation, Citigroup Corporation and Comcast Corporation. She served on the Boards of Air Product, Aetna and EDS Corporation as well. She chaired the Council of Presidents of the Universities Research Association, the board of Innovation Philadelphia and the Knowledge Industry Partnership, and served on the steering committee of college presidents for America Reads and the executive committee of the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. Rodin served on President Clinton’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology and co-chaired the transition team of Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street. She also served from 1994-95 on a Presidential panel to review security at the White House. Rodin is also a member of the Council on Competitiveness.

Rodin has published more than 200 articles and chapters in academic publications and authored or co-authored eleven books, including most recently, Public Discourse in America: Conversation and Community in the Twenty-First Century (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003). This collection of essays originated in the work of the Penn National Commission on Society, Culture, and Community, which she convened and chaired.

In March 2005, Dr. Rodin became president of the Rockefeller Foundation, one of the world’s oldest and largest private philanthropies.

Anne Stenhammer

State Secretary for International Development, Norway.

Ms Stenhammer is the State Secretary for International Development of the Socialist Left Party in Norway. Prior to this, she was a member of the Fauske municipal executive committee for 16 years and the Mayor of Fauske municipality for 8 years.

Ms. Stenhammer has also held various political posts in the Socialist Left Party for 20 years. She sits on the board of ENFO Norge, Nordland Theatre, and chairs the supervisory board of the Norwegian Post Bank. She is also a member of the corporate assembly, Kommunalbanken and is a member of various other regional and national boards.

Miguel Szekely

Former Undersecretary of Prospective, Planning and Evaluation, Ministry of Social Development, Mexico.

Between March 2002 and January 2006 Miguel Székely was theUnder Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the Ministry of Social Development of Mexico. He worked as Chief of the Office of Regional Development at the Office of the President of Mexico during 2001, and as Research Economist at the Inter American Development Bank from 1996 to 2001. He has a PhD in Economics and a Masters in Economics for Development from the University of Oxford, and a Masters in Public Policy from ITAM, Mexico. He has lectured on Development Economics for Latin America at El Colegio de México, ITAM, and at the University of Oxford. His is a specialist on social and economic problems in Mexico and Latin America, and has researched widely on the topics of inequality and poverty. He has 55 academic publications including 6 books, journal articles, and chapters in edited volumes.

Zafiris Tzannatos

Advisor, World Bank Institute.

Mr. Tzannatos is a World Bank senior spokesperson on child labor issues and a Bank expert on labor standards and social protection. Mr. Tzannatos is co-author of the World Bank's paper Child Labor: Issues and Directions for the World Bank, and also of Unions and Collective Bargaining: Economic Effects in a Global Environment. He is also an expert in labor and human resource development, specialized in gender equality, discrimination and employment and training issues. Most recently, he was manager of social protection in the Middle East and North Africa region and Advisor to the World Bank's Managing Director for Human Development.

Outside the Bank, he has held senior academic positions in the United Kingdom including fellowships in a number of universities, and is a former Chair of the Economics Department at the American University of Beirut. He has worked for many international and national organizations including UNDP, ILO, EU, and the British Equal Opportunities Commission; and advised Governments both in industrialized and developing countries on a wide range of social policy issues. In addition to academic articles, he has also published ten books mostly on social issues, including a textbook on labor economics.

Diane Vincent

Executive Vice-President of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

Diane Vincent was appointed Executive Vice-President of the Canadian International Development Agency in May 2005.  She has also recently occupied the position of Associate Deputy Minister at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (1999-2003) and Associate Deputy Minister at Citizenship and Immigration Canada (2003-2005).  Previously, Ms. Vincent was Associate Deputy Minister for the Status of Women Secretariat from 1995-1996 for the Quebec Government.

Diane has worked for 25 years on economic, social and international issues in the Quebec and Canadian governments.  Diane has acquired extensive experience in the area of industry development and international trade, agriculture, agri-food and food security issues, rural community development, migration and refugee protection and gender issues. On gender, she has worked to promote the participation of women at local levels, develop a pay equity act and support leadership initiatives for women in agriculture. 

Diane Vincent has a Masters in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (2003) and also has a Bachelor in Applied Sciences (Bio-Agronomy) from Laval University (1981). She is a graduate of the Program for Public Executives (Queen’s University).

In 1996, Diane won the Agriculture Excellence Award for exceptional accomplishments as head of the Canadian delegation for the preparation of the FAO World Food Summit.  In 1998, she was awarded the Head of the Public Service Award for the Canadian government for excellence in service delivery for Team Canada Inc., a network of services to Canadian exporters. In 2002, she received a Canada-U.S. Fulbright Award.

Paul Wolfowitz

President, World Bank.

Paul Wolfowitz was unanimously approved as 10th President of the World Bank Group by the institution’s Board of Executive Directors in March 2005.  Prior to this appointment, Mr. Wolfowitz spent more than three decades as a public servant, ambassador and educator, including 24 years in government service under seven U.S. presidents. His practical experience in the developing world includes three years in Indonesia as U.S. Ambassador, and his Washington-based policy work on East Asian affairs.

Mr. Wolfowitz also has been a leader in higher education. From 1994-2001, he served as Dean and Professor of International Relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University. Earlier, he taught political science at Yale University. Mr. Wolfowitz has written widely on foreign policy, diplomacy and national security, and was a member of the advisory board of Foreign Affairs.

In government, Mr. Wolfowitz served three years under Secretary of State George Shultz as Ambassador to Indonesia, the fourth most-populous country in the world and largest in the Muslim world. During Ambassador Wolfowitz’s tenure in that country, he was known for reaching out to all elements of society and for his advocacy of reform and political openness. Under his leadership, the embassy in Jakarta was officially recognized as one of the best-managed U.S. diplomatic missions in the world.

Earlier, Mr. Wolfowitz served two years as head of the U. S. State Department’s Policy Planning Office and three-and-a-half years as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, where he worked directly with the leaders of more than 20 countries. In that position, Mr. Wolfowitz played a key role in supporting the peaceful transition to democracy in the Philippines in 1986. He also worked to help improve U.S. relations with China, strengthen alliances with Japan and Korea, and lay the groundwork for the subsequent democratic transition in Korea.

In 1989, President George H.W. Bush appointed Mr. Wolfowitz to the post of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, where he played a role in planning for the successful liberation of Kuwait, including organizing the fundraising effort that raised $50 billion in multilateral support. He also collaborated on the U.S. administration’s nuclear arms reduction initiative, in September 1991. As Deputy Secretary of Defense under President George W. Bush from 2001-2005, Mr. Wolfowitz’s responsibilities included oversight of the budget process as well as development of policy to respond to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Mr. Wolfowitz majored in Mathematics at Cornell University, in Ithaca, NY, and earned a Ph.D in Political Science at the University of Chicago. His early interest in development issues was evident in his 1972 doctoral dissertation on water desalination in the Middle East, as well as in his first government paper — written in 1966 for the Budget Bureau on the impact of agricultural subsidies.

Mona Zulficar

Senior Partner and Chairperson, Executive Committee, of Shalakany Law Office, and Chair, World Bank’s External Gender Consultative Group.

Ms. Zulficar is a Senior Partner and Chairperson, Executive Committee, of Shalakany Law Office, the largest law firm in Egypt and the Middle East. She heads the Banking and Capital Markets Group and is internationally recognized as a leading expert in this field. Her other areas of legal expertise include investment banking, mergers and acquisitions and telecommunications law. She is currently a member of the board of directors of the Central Bank of Egypt and is actively engaged in the banking and financial sector reform and development. Ms. Zulficar is also a leading activist for human rights and women's rights in particular. She spearheaded a campaign for gender equality and legal reform of family and other laws in Egypt. Ms Zulficar serves as a member of Egypt's National Council for Human Rights, National Council for Women, and as Chair of Egypt's Women's Health Improvement Association and Al Tadamun micro-credit program.  She has also served as board member of various international human rights NGOs and has represented Egypt and the Arab World in international conferences, including UN and NGO conferences on population and development, human rights and women's rights.

Ms. Zuficar obtained a BS in Economics and Political Science from Cairo University and an LLB from Mansoura University.