The Shared Societies Project
Building a World Safe for Difference
Programs
- The Shared Societies Project
- The G20 in a Post Crisis World
- Women's Political Participation and Leadership
- Energy and Climate Change
- Global Leadership for Haiti Reconstruction
- Political Leadership for Democratic Transition in Kyrgyzstan
- Freedom of Association in the MENA
- The Political Dimensions of the World Economic Crisis
- Political Leadership for Democratic Development
- Democracy, Security and Terrorism
- General Assemblies and Annual Conferences
Economic Argument-Group of Experts
- Alicia Bárcena - Executive Secretary, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
- Rafael Domínguez Martín - Chair of the Department of International Cooperation and Latin America, University of Cantabria
- Jesús Felipe – Principal Economist, Head of the Strategic Research Unit, Asian Development Bank
- Roberto Foa – Doctoral Researcher, Harvard University
- Georg Fisher – Acting Director Social Protection, European Commission, Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities
- Kinga Göncz - Member of European Parliament (S&D, Hungary), Vice-Chair of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee
- Arjan de Haan - Senior Lecturer Social Policy, Institute of Social Studies
- Augusto López Claros – EFD-Global Consulting Network Founder EFD- and Honorary Professor at the European Business School.
- Ananda Millard - Senior Researcher, Bonn International Center for Conversion
- Wim Naudé - Senior Research Fellow and Project Director, UNU-WIDER
- Ernesto Ottone – Member of the Club of Madrid Advisory Committee
- Mario Pezzini - Director, Development Centre, OECD
- Werner Puschra – Executive Director, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
- Magali Rheault – Senior Analyst, Gallup Center for Muslim Studies. Senior Consultant, Gallup World Poll
- Camilla Schippa – Senior Vice President, Global Peace Index
- Amartya Sen – Nobel Laureate in Economics. (Corresponding Member of the Group) TBC
- Frances Stewart - Director, Oxford University Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE)
- Carlos Vegara - Regional Advisor of ECLAC
- Ellen Webbink - Database manager Indices of Social Development, Institute of Social Studies.
- Richard Wilkinson – The Equality Trust Founder
- Stuart Wilson - Formerly Vice President with the DuPont Company
Alicia Bárcena
Executive Secretary, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
Ms. Bárcena is Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean since July 2008. At the UN, she has served as Chef de Cabinet to former Secretary-General Kofi Annan before serving as the Under-Secretary-General for Management.
Earlier in her career she was Deputy Executive Secretary of ECLAC and in this capacity she contributed substantively and increased interagency collaboration to provide a regional perspective on the Millennium Development Goals and on Financing for Sustainable Development, connecting issues of inequality, poverty, economic development and sustainability with the required fiscal policies needed to address extreme poverty. She also served as Chief of the Environment and Human Settlements Division of ECLAC and, previously, as Coordinator of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), as well as Adviser to the Latin American and Caribbean Sustainable Development Programme in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
She was part of the Secretariat that was in charge of preparing the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. Previously, she served in the Government of Mexico as the first Vice-Minister of Ecology and as Director-General of the National Institute of Fisheries.
Rafael Domínguez Martín
Chair of the Department of International Cooperation and Latin America, University of Cantabria
Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Cantabria, since 2006, he has been chair of the Department of International Cooperation and Latin America, as well as head of the Latin American Master in International Cooperation and Development. He collaborates with a number of Spanish foundations( International Foundation, Latin America of Administration and Public Policies, Carolina Foundation, Telefónica Foundation), and in partnering countries with public entities such as the National Institute of Federalism y Municipal Development (Mexico’s Ministry of Internal Affairs), Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Relations, Ministry of Development of the Southern Border of Chiapas (Mexico), the Ecuadorian Agency of International Cooperation and the Institute of Advanced National Studies of Ecuador.
He is a contributing professor to the following master’s programs: Master in International Economic Relations y Cooperation at the University of Guadalajara (Mexico), Master in International Cooperation and Development in Latin America at the University of King Juan Carlos, Master in Immigration and International Cooperation at the University of Vitoria and the Official Inter-university Master in Economics at the University of Oviedo, Cantabria and the Basque Country.
Jesús Felipe
Principal Economist, Head of the Strategic Research Unit, Asian Development Bank
Mr. Felipe joined ADB in 1996. He has held academic positions with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 1995-1996, and with the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1999-2002. He is also a Research Associate at the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis (CAMA), Australian National University, College of Business and Economics; at the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), University of Newcastle (Australia); the Cambridge Centre for Economic & Public Policy, University of Cambridge; and the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability (CFEPS), University of Missouri-Kansas City. He also is a member of the Editorial Boards of Metroeconomica and of Journal of Employment and Public Policy.
He works on issues relating to long-run growth in Asia, productivity and technological progress. His research interests spread across areas such as structural transformation, growth (especially the debate on the sources of growth in East Asia), the functional distribution of income, business cycles, the path of profit rates, and structural change. Currently he is working on a project on industrialization and structural change in Central Asia. Mr. Felipe has co-authored and co-edited various publications in the mentioned areas of specialization.
Roberto Foa
Doctoral Researcher, Harvard University
Roberto Foa has his BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economy from Oxford, and his Masters in Philosophy from Cambridge. In 2004 he was selected as a Peter Martin Fellow at Financial Times.
Since 2006 he has been working in Washington DC towards creating the Social Development Indicators Project, which is a study being conducted on the relevance of social institutions and their effectiveness. In 2007 he served as the coordinator for the World Values Survey in Rwanda. He has authored many papers and contributed to many chapters and books covering topics of social capital, democracy, and economic development.
Georg Fisher
Acting Director Social Protection, European Commission, Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities
An economist by qualification, Georg Fischer is currently Head of Unit for "Social Protection: Pensions and Health" in the European Commission's Directorate General for Employment and Social Affairs. His responsibilities include, among others, the Open Method of Coordination on pensions and health and long-term care.
From 1996 to 2003 he was in charge of the work on Employment in Analysis within the same Directorate General including the annual "Employment in Europe report", the economic analysis of European labour markets, the assessment of the employment impact of community polices. He was involved in developing the European Employment Strategy. Prior to this, Mr. Fisher worked for the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OCDE) on employment and social policies in transition economies, for the Austrian Government in the Ministries of Finance and Labour as well as in the Social Science Centre Berlin and for the Economic Cooperation Foundation in Tel Aviv, Israel.
He is an economist and studied at the University of Vienna in Austria as well as the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom.
Kinga Göncz
Member of European Parliament (S&D, Hungary), Vice-Chair of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee
Kinga Göncz, Hungary, is a member of Magyar Szocialista Párt (MSZP – Hungarian Socialist Party), part of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament.
She became a member of the European Parliament in 2009 and is currently Vice-Charwoman of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. She is also part of the Delegation for Relations with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo. As a substitute, Göncz sits on the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, the Committee on Petitions, the Special Committee on the Financial, Economic and Social Crisis, and is part of the Delegation for Relations with the countries of Southeast Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Before joining Parliament, Göncz was Minister of Foreign Affairs in Hungary from 2006 to 2009 and Minister of Youth, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities from 2004 to 2006. She was nominated as Minister without portfolio of Equal Opportunities in 2004, and was appointed as Political State Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Social and Family Affairs in 2002. Between 1998 and 2003, Göncz taught a course in the Social Psychology of Prejudice at the Human Rights Department of the Central European University, Hungary. She acted as the director of Partners Hungary from 1994 to 2002, and was an associate professor at the Social Policy and Social Work Department of the Institute for Sociology of Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary, from 1989.
Arjan de Haan
Senior Lecturer Social Policy, Institute of Social Studies
Mr. de Haan joined ISS as Senior Lecturer Social Policy in April 2009. His work with the Institute focuses on emerging economies, specifically exploring those of China and India, studies which he hopes will improve the understanding of which policies are best suited to enhance well-being in the context of rapid globalization. He worked and lived in China for three years, and during that time, was convinced that development studies lacked a sufficient understanding of China´s development and its effect on development elsewhere. In response, he has become a member of the UK ESRC-funded ¨Rising Powers Network,¨ and he was the convenor of a program on ¨China as Global Power, Middle-Income Country, and Low-Income Country,¨ funded by NOW and MOST in collaboration with Beijing Normal University. In 2009 and 2010, he will be the convenor of MA specialization on Population, Poverty, and Social Development.
Before coming to ISS, he worked for the UK Department for International Development, as social development adviser, and from that experience, he published a textbook, How the Aid Industry Work among many other articles.
Augusto López Claros
EFD-Global Consulting Network Founder EFD- and Honorary Professor at the European Business School
Augusto Lopez-Claros has a degree in Mathematical Statistics from Cambridge University, England, and a PhD in Economics from Duke University, USA. He is a former professor at the University of Chile at Santiago, a resident representative at the International Monetary Fund in Russia, a senior international economist at Lehman Brothers in London, and Chief Economist and Director of the Global Competiveness Report 2006/2007 at the World Economic Forum. In 2006, he founded EFD-Global Consulting Network, a consultancy advising governments and private corporations on economic, financial and development issues.
He is the author of numerous articles and papers on international economic issues, including: The European Monetary System: Developments and Perspectives (co-author); Fiscal Policy Issues During the Transition in Russia, Ten Years of Russian Economic Reform; Reforming the IMF; Interdependence, Cooperation, and the Emergence of Global Institutions; Chile: the Next State of Development; The Role of International Financial Organizations During the Transition in Russia; Israel: Factors in the Emergence of an ICT Powerhouse (co-author), and many others. His interests include the role of interdependence and cooperation in the emergence of global institutions, elements of a successful approach to economic development, and aspects of management of the globalization process.
Ananda Millard
Senior Researcher, Bonn International Center for Conversion
Holds a PhD from the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford (1999), an MA in International Conflict Analysis (1995) from the School of International Relations at the University of Kent in Canterbury and a BA in International Studies with a focus on economy (1994) from Norwich University.
She has held senior research positions at the Peace Research Institute in Oslo (1999-2002), at the Small Arms Survey at the Graduate Institute in Geneva (2007-2008) and at the Bonn International Center for Conversion (since 2008). She has conducted research and published on issues relating to Child Soldiers, Landmines, Small Arms and Light Weapons, Wartime Rape, DDR/SSR, and Armed Violence. From 2002 to 2006 she was the manager of the IMSMA training department at the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining. During this time she was responsible for the provision of capacity building to more than 40 mine action country programs worldwide.
Dr. Millard has also conducted numerous evaluations and consultancies for different governments and for different United Nations agencies. She has extensive field research and project management experience from conflict and post-conflict zones in multiple countries worldwide in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Wim Naudé
Senior Research Fellow and Project Director, UNU-WIDER
Wim Naudé is senior research fellow and project director at the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University, based in Helsinki, Finland. Born in Pretoria, South Africa, he obtained an M.Sc in quantitative development economics from the University of Warwick, UK, where was also a recipient of the Shiv Nath Prize. Following completion of his PhD in economics at North-West University in South Africa in 1993, he joins the University of Oxford as lecturer, and research officer at the Centre for the Study of African Economies, where his research focuses in particular on Ethiopia and South Africa. He also teaches at Addis Ababa University. Between 1998 and 2006 he is professor of economics and director of research at North-West University in South Africa. In 2005 the South African Minister of Finance appoints him to the council of Statistics South Africa.
In 2007 he joins the United Nations University where he directs its project on entrepreneurship in economic development and spearheads from the end of 2008 a number of initiatives in response to the global economic crisis. This includes most notably co-organizing (with the office of the UN’s Secretary-General’s special advisor on Africa) a side-event at the UN Headquarters on the impact of the crisis on Africa and the least developed countries during the UN Conference on the Global Economic Crisis in June 2009, and contributing to a session on entrepreneurship and the global economic crisis at the World Bank’s Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (abcde) in Stockholm in June 2010. Wim has published widely on development economics and entrepreneurship, and according to IDEAS/Repec he is ranked amongst the top 5 % of authors in economics and amongst the top 10 economists in Finland. He has been guest editor of a number of journal special issues, including of Journal of Development Studies, Small Business Economics, Oxford Development Studies, Journal of International Development and European Journal of Development Research. He has edited a book on Entrepreneurship and Economic Development that will be published in 2010 by Palgrave Macmillan, and co-edited books on Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Development, and on Small Island Developing States, that will be published in late 2010/early 2011 by respectively Oxford University Press and Routledge. He is currently working on books on the global economic crisis and development and on industrial policy and development.
Ernesto Ottone
Member of the Club of Madrid Advisory Committee
Dr. Ernesto Ottone was recently Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). From 2000 to 2006, he served as Senior Adviser to President Ricardo Lagos and as Director of Strategic Analysis of the Office of the President of the Republic of Chile.
He has worked for more than twenty years in various international organizations, being Secretary of the ECLAC from 1995 to 2000 and Deputy Secretary to this organization from 1989 to 1995. He served also as coordinator of the area of Social Sciences of the UNESCO. He is also a member of the Advisory Committee of the Foundation for International Relations and Foreign Dialogue (FRIDE) and Academic Advisor to Club de Madrid, both organizations based in Spain.
In the academic field, Mr. Ottone is a professor for a variety of Masters and Doctorate courses in Latin American universities and at the Inter-American Human Rights Institute (IIDH) in Costa Rica, Mr. Ottone studied sociology at the Catholic University of Valparaiso and holds a PhD in political science from the Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris III. He is author of various publications and articles.
Mario Pezzini
Director, Development Centre, OECD
Mr. Pezzini was recently appointed Director ad interim of the Organisation of Economic CO-Operation and Development (OECD).
Mr. Pezzini joined the OCDE in 1995 as Principal Administrator in charge of the work relating to Distressed Urban Areas. From 1996 to 1999, he was the Head of the OECD Rural Development Programme, and from 1999 to 2006, he served as Head of the Regional Competitiveness and Governance Division.
On several occasions Mr. Pezzini has been an economic advisor for international organisations and think tanks (such as ILO, UNIDO, European Commission and Nomisma in Italy) in the fields of economic development, industrial organisation and regional economics, with a particular focus on policies for clusters and networks of small and medium sized firms as well as on policies to valorise natural and cultural resources. A member of several governmental advisory boards, Mr. Pezzini was also manager of the Regional Government of the Emilia-Romagna Region in Italy.
Werner Puschra
Executive Director, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
Werner Puschra holds a Masters in Economics and a PhD in Political Science from the Free University of Berlin. His areas of expertise include the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, peace building, development, democracy and human rights.
For 30 years, he has been working with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), a political foundation committed to the advancement of public policy issues in the spirit of the basic values of social democracy through education, research, and international cooperation. He currently holds the office of Executive Director of the New York City Office of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung foundation, which serves as a liaison between the United Nations, FES field offices and partners in developing countries to strengthen the voice of the Global South. It contributes to UN debates on economic and social development, and on peace and security issues.
Mr. Puschra was the Head of the Africa Department at FES Headquarters in Bonn. He also served as resident director of the foundation's field offices in Peru (1986-1990), South Korea (1990 - 1994) and Egypt (1994 - 2000).
Magali Rheault
Senior Analyst, Gallup Center for Muslim Studies. Senior Consultant, Gallup World Poll
Magali Rheault is a Senior Analyst with the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies. Ms. Rheault is a regular speaker at international conferences, symposia and other events on issues of Muslim-West relations, governance, radicalization, peace and security, and public diplomacy. She briefs opinion leaders and policy makers on Gallup’s research and has lectured at a wide variety of institutions in the U.S. and Europe. Her research has appeared in national publications such as Harvard International Review. She is also a member of the scientific committee of Awraq, a journal that analyzes contemporary issues in Arab and Muslim countries.
In addition, Ms. Rheault is a Senior Consultant with the Gallup World Poll, a multi-year research initiative to survey public views and attitudes in more than 140 countries around the world. In this capacity, she focuses on the intersection of governance, job creation, entrepreneurship and development in sub-Saharan Africa and the Maghreb.
Before moving to the United States, Ms. Rheault lived in France, where she studied urban development and land issues pertaining to the Maghreb and West Africa. She received a bachelor’s degree in urban planning from the Université d’Aix-Marseille and a master’s degree in geography from the Université d’Avignon. She speaks English, French, and Spanish.
Camilla Schippa
Senior Vice President, Global Peace Index
Camilla Schippa is Director of the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) which produces the Global Peace Index - a tool for measuring the peacefulness of countries and identifying the drivers of peace. She manages the development of the Index as well as the research carried out, internationally, on and around the index. Schippa is also responsible for the Peace and Security portfolio of The Charitable Foundation, a private trust aimed to improve the quality of life for as many people as possible through interventions that are substantially life changing. In supporting peace building activities and development in the poorest areas of the world, she is focused on developing metrics to better understand what social structures and societal attitudes lead to peace.
Schippa has held positions at the United Nations for over a decade. Until early 2008, she was the Chief of Office of the United Nations Office for Partnerships. Over the years, Schippa guided the development of high impact public-private partnerships in support of the Millennium Development Goals and has contributed to the creation of numerous strategic alliances between the United Nations and corporations, foundations and philanthropists. She managed liaison with regional commissions, UN programmes, funds and specialized agencies, diplomatic missions and NGOs. As Secretary to the UN Fund for International Partnerships (UNFIP) Advisory Board, Camilla oversaw the planning of Board meetings and was responsible for portfolios of funding valued at over US$100 million. While at the United Nations, Schippa also assisted in overseeing the activities of the UN Democracy Fund, led the United Nations’ engagement in the area of Sport for Development & Peace and was part of the team responsible for setting up the Peacebuilding Support Office.
Amartya Sen
Nobel Laureate in Economics. (Corresponding Member of the Group) TBC
Sen first studied in India before moving to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he earned a BA in 1956 and then a Ph.D. in 1959. He has taught economics at Calcutta, Delhi School Of Economics (1963-71), Oxford, Harvard and was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, between 1997 and 2004.
Amartya Kumar Sen is an economist best known for his work on famine, Human development theory, welfare economics, and the underlying causes of poverty and hunger. He received The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences (Noble prize for economics), in memory of Alfred Nobel, for his work in mathematical economics in 1998. The government of India awarded him with the highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna in 1999.
Sen's best-known work is Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, in which he established that famine occurs not from a lack of food, but from inequalities built into mechanisms for distributing food. In addition to his important work on the causes of famines, Sen's work in the field of development economics has had considerable influence in the formulation of the Human Development Report , published by the United Nations Development Program. The HDI ranks countries on a variety of economic and social indicators. Amartya Amartya Sen's other works are- "Choice of Techniques", "Collective Choice and Social Welfare", "Poverty and Famines", "Development as Freedom" etc.
Frances Stewart
Director, Oxford University Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE)
Dr. Stewart has been director of CRISE, at Oxford University’s department of international development, since 2003, and was director of the University’s international development. She is coauthor of UNICEF’s influential study Adjustment with a Human Face and War and Underdevelopment, and editor of Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict: Understanding Group Violence in Multiethnic Societies, among many other publications. She has directed a number of major research programs financed by the UK Department for International Development, the Swedish Development Agency, and the Carnegie Corporation.
Scientific American named Dr. Stewart as one of fifty outstanding technological leaders for 2003 for promoting anti-poverty campaigns to help quell armed conflicts in developing countries. She is President elect of the Human Development and Capability Association and Vice-Chair of the United Nations Committee on Development Policy. She was previously Vice-Chair of the Board of the International Food Policy Research Institute. She received her Masters and Doctorate from Oxford University.
Carlos Vegara
Regional Advisor of ECLAC
He is a sociologist from the Universidad Católica and obtained a Ph.D. from Warwick University (England). He has been a Professor in the Universidad Católica of Valparaíso and in the Universidad Católica of Chile. He has worked as consultant for different international organizations, including CEPAL, ILPES, PNUD, UNESCO and UNICEF.
In the last two decades, he has been a speaker and invited professor in different academic institutions in Latin America, United States, Canada, Europe and Africa. He was a senior advisor of President Ricardo Lagos in Chile about strategic análisis during all his mandate. Currently, he is a Regional Advisor to the Executive Secretary of CEPAL.
Ellen Webbink
Database manager Indices of Social Development, Institute of Social Studies
Ellen Webbink studied sociology (MA) at Radboud University Nijmegen (RUN). Since 2002 she has been working at the Department of Economics at the same university. As a junior researcher she has worked on building the Database Developing World (DDW) in which many datasets with micro level information for developing and transition countries have been brought together, made comparable and have been enriched with contextual data at sub-national and national level. The DDW is used for comparative multilevel research on educational participation, child labor, women's labor market participation, reproductive health, fertility, and child mortality. Ellen is now finishing her PhD dissertation on child labor in developing countries and started working at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam (located in The Hague) as database manager for project Indices for Social Development (ISD).
Richard Wilkinson
The Equality Trust Founder
Richard G. Wilkinson is a British researcher in social inequalities in health and the social determinants of health. His work has shown that societies with more equal distribution of incomes have better health outcomes than ones in which the gap between richest and poorest parts society is greater.
Wilkinson has played a formative role in international research on the health and social effects of income inequality and his work has been published in many languages. He studied economic history at the London School of Economics before training in epidemiology and is Professor Emeritus at the University of Nottingham Medical School, Honorary Professor at University College London and a Visiting Professor at the University of York. He is a co-founder of The Equality Trust (www.equalitytrust.org.uk) and author - with Kate Pickett - of: The Spirit Level: why more equal societies are better for everyone (Penguin 2009).
Stuart Wilson
Former Vice President with the DuPont Company
Stuart is a graduate of Nottingham University, UK, ( B. Sc., 1969) and Columbia University, USA, (M.A., 2008). During his 30 year career with DuPont, he held senior management positions in UK, USA, Switzerland and Japan. These included a 7 year assignment in Tokyo, where he was the Managing Director of 2 of DuPont's major strategic business units. These businesses had marketing operations in 13 Asian countries and manufacturing and technical facilities in Japan, China, India, South Korea and Singapore. While in Japan, Stuart was also a member of the Board of Directors of the DuPont - Mitsui joint venture as well as Vice President for all business activities. Following his assignment in Japan, he was appointed President of the largest global DuPont joint venture (with the Rhodia Company, France).
With the aim of broadening his experience beyond the corporate world, Stuart retired from DuPont and moved to Vietnam where he became the export director of an art gallery in Hanoi. Successful exhibitions in Geneva and London brought much needed income to struggling Vietnamese artists. Following his acceptance as a graduate student in 2006, Stuart was awarded an M.A. from Columbia in 2008. His thesis was an analysis of Civil Society in Japan which provided a stepping stone to his current pro bono work of advocacy for older persons and direct support of Social Integration. His currrent activities include the position of UN representative for HelpAge International, the largest global NGO supporting and advocating for older people.