Welcome to the 2007 Economic Growth Officers Workshop website. Held October 15-19, 2007, the workshop was designed to build awareness and understanding of new developments in the field of economic growth – particularly those that significantly affect how we conceive, develop, and implement USAID assistance activities in USAID host countries.

Presenters
Anwar-ul-Haq Ahady is Minister of Finance for the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.
Dr. Rave Aulakh is a senior macro economist in USAID/EGAT’s Office of Economic Growth and is the CTO for USAID’s worldwide Fiscal Reform and Economic Governance Project and Country Analytical Reports. During the previous twenty plus years with the Agency she has served mainly in USAID field missions in Nigeria and Bangladesh, where she was the office director and the chief economist for the Mission. She also served in Sudan as an Economist. In the field posts she has a wide range of experience designing, implementing, and evaluating programs and projects addressing a wide range of macro and multi-sectoral policy issues, including privatization, fiscal and trade reform.
Richard Auty, Professor Emeritus of Economic Geography at Lancaster University, has advised many multi-and bilateral agencies on economic development issues. He previously taught at Dartmouth College and the University of Guyana. Research interests include industrial policy and rent cycling theory. Recent publications include Energy Wealth and Governance in the Caucasus and Central Asia (Routledge), co-edited with I. de Soysa, Resource Abundance and Economic Development (Oxford University Press), and Rent Cycling Theory, the Resource Curse, and Development Policy (DAI, 2007).
Juan A. B. Belt, an economist and Senior Foreign Service Officer, is the Director of USAID’s Infrastructure and Engineering Office. Besides managing the Office, he has been personally involved in the evaluation of the Government of Egypt’s strategy for information and communications technology (ICT); the design of a program in Colombia to provide rural connectivity using wireless technologies; and support for energy reforms in Colombia, Honduras and Nicaragua. As a Principal Economist at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) from 1998 to 2004, he was the team leader for projects in several countries of the Caribbean and Andean regions covering telecommunications, ICT, transport and power sectors, as well as finance and secured transactions. From 1983 to 1998 at USAID, he was Chief Economist of the Global Bureau, Deputy Director in Guatemala (1995-97), and head of economics offices in USAID missions in El Salvador (1992-95), Costa Rica (1989-92) and Panama (1983-86). While head of these offices he worked mainly on trade issues, privatization, macroeconomics, public finance and state modernization. He designed the budget support program for Grenada in the aftermath of the U.S. intervention. During the U.S. intervention in Panama, he was responsible for designing a $110 million lender of last resort mechanism that permitted the unfreezing of commercial bank deposits. In both Guatemala and El Salvador, he worked on the design and implementation of programs to facilitate the peace process, including the reform and privatization of the power and telecommunications sectors. Prior to his work at USAID, he worked for the World Bank in Latin America, Europe and Africa. He worked mainly on the design of agricultural and natural resource projects, and on the development of national strategies for those sectors. He studied economics at Georgetown, American and Cornell, and has taught economics at universities in the U.S. and Latin America.
Rodney Bent is Deputy Chief Executive Officer for the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). As Deputy CEO, Mr. Bent manages the day-to-day operations of agency. He previously served as MCC’s Vice President for Policy and International Relations. Prior to joining MCC in November of 2005, Mr. Bent was a professional staff member of the House Appropriations Committee, where he recommended appropriation levels and policies for USAID programs, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency. From 2003-04 he served as the Senior Advisor to the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Planning and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget for the Coalition Provisional Authority (C.P.A.) in Baghdad, Iraq. As Senior Advisor he helped to build the capacities of the Iraqi Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Planning to manage fiscal policy and international donor contributions. He was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service. Mr. Bent spent 20 years at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and was promoted to Deputy Associate Director for the International Affairs Division in 1998. Mr. Bent has also held positions at Bankers Trust Company and at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He received an M.B.A. from Cornell University, an M.A. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and an A.B. in History from Cornell University.
Lori A. Bittner is a financial sector specialist with over 20 years of experience working in both developed and emerging market countries. As a Managing Director in the Financial Sector Strengthening division of BearingPoint’s Emerging Markets area, Ms. Bittner has responsibility for a portfolio of international reform projects and teams of advisors living around the world. She is involved in the day-to-day management of programs from the initial design and staffing phases through project execution. She has overseen projects and worked in over twenty countries throughout Eastern and Central Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Central Asia including many of the post conflict regions. Ms. Bittner is currently Engagement Director for our USAID programs in Afghanistan. These programs are involved in Capacity Development across the public, private, and university sectors as well as in Government reform and strengthening to promote sound economic and financial policy and growth. Our programs work across multiple Ministries and Agencies including Finance, Education, Agriculture, Commerce, Communications and the Central Bank. The in-country team is comprised of over 100 expatriate advisors and over 200 local Afghanistan employees. Ms. Bittner has been with BearingPoint, Inc. for over twelve years. Prior to joining BearingPoint she worked for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (U.S. Treasury) for ten years as a Commissioned National Bank Examiner. As a Bank Examiner she was responsible for the supervision of nationally chartered banks in the Eastern United States. She ensured the safety and soundness of banks ranging in size and complexities including many of the nation’s largest companies.
Bruce Bolnick is Chief Economist for the International Group at Nathan Associates. At Nathan, Dr. Bolnick served as Chief of Party for the initial Country Analytical Support (CAS) project, and directed a variety of other USAID-funded programs. His recent technical work includes an assessment of the World Bank’s Doing Business methodology for Time to Trade; a study of financial sector constraints on private sector development in Mozambique; an assessment of USAID’s economic growth program in Sri Lanka, as well as CAS reports on Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Zimbabwe. Before joining Nathan, Dr. Bolnick was a Fellow at the Kennedy School at Harvard and a Senior Associate at the Harvard Institute of International Development. He has worked overseas for more than 12 years in Africa and Asia. As Chief of Party for Harvard’s Capacity Building for Economic Decision Making Project in Mozambique, he helped the government formulate growth and poverty reduction strategies. As Chief of Party for the Malawi Economic Management and Reform Project, he helped the Reserve Bank develop and implement a financial programming model for monetary management. As senior advisor to the Ministry of Finance in Zambia, he helped the government design a comprehensive tax reform program and improve fiscal-monetary coordination. Dr. Bolnick has taught economics at the University of Nairobi, Duke University, Northeastern University, the Harvard University (Kennedy School), and Brandeis University. He has written dozens of professional publications on economic development. Dr. Bolnick has a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University.
Karol Boudreaux is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center. She is also the lead researcher for Enterprise Africa!, a research project that is investigating, analyzing, and reporting on enterprise-based solutions to poverty in Africa. In addition, she teaches a course on law and international development at George Mason University. Ms. Boudreaux’s main areas of interest include property rights and development, human rights, and international law. The current focus of her research is contemporary Africa and the ways in which particular institutional arrangements have either helped or hindered human flourishing and economic development on the continent. Ms. Boudreaux is a member of the Working Group on Property Rights of the U.N.’s Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor. Before joining the Mercatus staff, Ms. Boudreaux was assistant dean at George Mason University’s School of Law. She taught for four years at Clemson University in the legal studies department, and she also served as director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington-on-Hudson, NY. Ms. Boudreaux earned her BA in English literature from Rutgers University (Douglass College) and her JD from the University of Virginia’s School of Law.
Annette Brown joined Chemonics in 2007 as Director of Impact Measurement, for which she conducts a variety of impact measurement and impact evaluation activities across all practices and regions. Her technical expertise includes several fields of economics and development such as tax policy and modeling, government institutional reform, think tank development, policy analysis training, macroeconomic and poverty alleviation policies, competition regulation, and monitoring and evaluation. In addition, she has conducted research in the economics fields of labor, industrial organization, and international trade. She served as a resident advisor in Armenia, where she advised senior Ministry of Finance officials, and has completed numerous short-term assignments in more than a dozen countries across Europe and Eurasia, Africa, and Asia. In her previous position at the Urban Institute, Dr. Brown oversaw all aspects of program management and development for the Institute’s international technical assistance and research portfolio. She has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan and has also held positions at BearingPoint Inc., Western Michigan University, and the World Bank.
John W. Bruce has worked on land policy and law in developing countries for forty years, primarily in Africa. He began work on land tenure in the late 1960s as a Peace Corps legal advisor to the Ministry of Land Reform in Ethiopia and later did research for his legal doctorate on customary land tenure in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. He spent five years in Sudan as the Ford Foundation’s representative in the 1970s, teaching Property at the Faculty of Law of the University of Khartoum and coordinating the Faculty’s Sudan Customary Law Research Project. He returned to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1980, serving as African Program Coordinator and then Director of the Land Tenure Center, an interdisciplinary research center working on land tenure issues in developing countries. In 1996 he left the University to join the Legal Department of the World Bank, where he served as Senior Counsel (Land Law), and also as the land tenure expert for the Bank’s Rural Development Department. He retired from the World Bank in 2006 and now heads a small consulting firm, Land and Development Solutions International. He has worked on land tenure issues widely in Africa and East Asia, and has published extensively on land policy and law, most recently Land Law Reform: Achieving Development Policy Objectives (World Bank, 2006) and Land and Business Formalization for Legal Empowerment of the Poor, Strategic Overview Paper (ARD for USAID, 2007). He holds a B.A. in International Relations from Lafayette College, a JD from Columbia University Law School and an SJD from the Law School of the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Louise Cord is Sector Manager of the World Bank’s Poverty Reduction and Development Effectiveness Department, which aims to improve the quality and implementation of poverty reduction strategies. Previously, she led a multi-donor program examining the operational policies associated with pro-poor growth drawing on cross country empirical analysis and 14 country studies. Prior to joining the poverty group, she worked in PREM’s front office. Before coming to PREM, she worked for 7 years in the Bank’s rural development group of Latin American and the Caribbean region on rural poverty and finance issues mainly in Mexico and El Salvador. Ms. Cord has published several articles and reports on rural poverty and agricultural policy in Mexico, Eastern Europe and Central Asia and more recently on pro-poor growth. She holds a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Michael Crosswell is a senior economist in the State Department’s newly established Office of the Director of Foreign Aid (F), working on economic growth issues, strategic planning and budgeting, and other policy and strategy issues. Before June 2006 he served as the Senior Economist in USAID’s Policy Office. As senior policy advisor for Economic Growth, he has led policy and strategy development and “goal reviews” for economic growth, including participation in the core group for USAID’s forthcoming Economic Growth Strategy. In the area of Agency strategic planning, he led the review and update of USAID’s strategic plan in CY2000, and was primary author of the January 2004 White Paper (“US Foreign Aid: Meeting the Challenges of the Twenty-First Century”). As background for both efforts, he wrote “Development, Foreign Aid, Strategic Planning, and GPRA”, presented at an international conference in July 2004. He has provided TDY assistance for strategy development in Macedonia and Albania. In the policy area, he wrote the “Policy Framework for Bilateral Foreign Aid”, a policy paper based on the White Paper and issued in January 2006. He has written several papers on poverty, most recently “Development, Poverty Reduction and the MDGs: Pitfalls in Strategic Planning and Management” (2005). He has also written in the general area of foreign aid, development, and U.S. national interests, including “The Development Record and the Effectiveness of Foreign Aid”, published in 1999. Prior to joining USAID’s Policy Office he served as USAID’s Chief Economist for Asia/Near East for nearly a decade, focusing on structural adjustment, trade and investment, poverty, graduation, and country performance indicators. He made numerous TDYs, working mainly on major USAID programs in the Philippines, Pakistan, and Egypt, and secondarily on other Asian countries and issues. He began his USAID career in PPC working on basic human needs, strategic budgeting, international development targets, food aid, and non-project assistance, with TDYs to Tanzania, Kenya, Egypt, and Jamaica. Before joining USAID he worked as an International Economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. Dr. Crosswell earned an MA and Ph.D. in Economics from Northwestern University, concentrating in international trade and development.
Carl J. Dahlman is Henry R. Luce Professor of International Relations and Information Technology at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. His current research focuses on how rapid advances in science, technology and information are affecting the growth prospects of nations and influencing trade, investment, innovation, education and economic relations in an increasingly globalizing world. He joined Georgetown after more than 25 years at the World Bank, where he did cutting-edge work on the role of knowledge in development, including directing the 1998-99 World Development Report: Knowledge for Development and managing the Knowledge for Development (K4D) program at the World Bank Institute. Dr. Dahlman served as the Bank’s Resident Representative and Financial Sector Leader in Mexico from 1994 to 1997, years during which the country coped with one of the biggest financial crises in its history. He also led divisions in the Bank’s Private Sector Development and Industry and Energy Departments. Dr. Dahlman has conducted extensive analytical work in developing countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, India, Pakistan, China, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Dr. Dahlman’s publications include China and the Knowledge Economy: Seizing the 21st Century, Korea and the Knowledge-Based Economy: Making the Transition, and India and the Knowledge Economy; Leveraging Strengths and Opportunities. Dr. Dahlman earned a B.A. in international relations from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in economics from Yale University.
Thomas Davenport is a Senior Manager at the Foreign Investment Advisory Service (FIAS), a joint service of the World Bank, IFC and MIGA. FIAS advises member country governments on how to attract and retain foreign direct investment and maximize its impact on poverty reduction. Prior to joining FIAS in early 2004, he was a Manager in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Department, responsible for the oversight of the IFC’s Project Development Facilities (PDF). Before that he established and was the first General Manager of the Mekong PDF operating in Indochina and earlier ran an IFC Facility operation in West Africa. Before joining IFC, Tom worked on a number of private sector advisory assignments in developing countries, ranging from privatization to export development and competitiveness. He has also been with the Canadian Foreign Service and has served as an export consultant to a number of Canadian companies in the high tech sector. Thomas Davenport received a MSc. in Development Studies from the London School of Economics in 1984.
Paul Davis is a development economist who has spent the past two decades analyzing and addressing economic policy and institutional development conditions and constraints in emerging market settings. During that time he has served as a program economist and program/project manager with USAID, focusing on the design and management of program and project support strategies/initiatives in the areas of fiscal and monetary reform, financial market regulation and development, pension reform, labor reform, privatization, accounting reform, and trade and investment legal/regulatory and institutional reform. Mr. Davis has analyzed economic reform priorities and developed comprehensive technical collaboration programs designed to promote the adoption and sustainable implementation of priority macroeconomic and structural reforms in a variety of challenging emerging market and transitional economy settings. During his career he has worked in Honduras, the Philippines, Vietnam, the Central Asian Republics, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, and Colombia. He currently serves as Mission Economist and Program Officer with USAID/Azerbaijan. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from Boston University in 1986. Alain de Janvry is Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, and served as co-director of the 2008 World Development Report on Agriculture and Development. He was a member of the Science Council of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and is a permanent member of the French National Academy of Agriculture. Mr. de Janvry has had extensive experience with agriculture and rural development in Latin America and West Africa. He has published widely in the fields of general economics, development economics, agricultural economics, and environmental economics.
Dennis de Tray is Vice President of the Center for Global Development. He received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1972, and then worked as a researcher at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, where he focused on U.S. welfare issues. During a two-year leave-of-absence from RAND, Dennis worked at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics in Islamabad and discovered his real calling: understanding and promoting economic development in low income countries. He left RAND in 1983 to join the World Bank as chief of its Living Standards Measurement program. The survey methodology developed under Dennis’s guidance remains the standard for poverty measurement in the World Bank and in a number of other international organizations. Following a stint as Administrator for the World Bank’s centrally funded Research Program, Dennis moved to the Latin American operations complex where he was responsible for programs in Bolivia, Colombia and the Dominican Republic. In 1994 he accepted the first of a series of overseas assignments with the World Bank and the IMF. Over the course of 12 years he was Director, Resident Staff and then Country Director in Jakarta, Indonesia (5 years), Senior Representative for the IMF in Hanoi, Vietnam (2 years) and Country Director for the five Central Asian Republics (4 years).
Dirk Dijkerman is Chief Operating Officer for the Office of the Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance.
Simeon Djankov is the creator of the Doing Business series and manager of the World Bank-IFC’s Dong Business Project. In his 11 years at the World Bank, he has worked on regional trade agreements in North Africa, enterprise restructuring and privatization in transition economies, corporate governance in East Asia, and regulatory reforms around the world. Dr. Djankov was a principal author of the World Development Report 2002. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and has published over 60 articles in academic journals, including in Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Public Economics, and Journal of Comparative Economics.
David Dod is a senior economist in EGAT’s Office of Economic Growth and Activity Manager for the Agency’s worldwide Fiscal Reform and Economic Governance Project. Prior to joining EGAT, he served 15 years mainly in USAID field missions in Egypt, Russia, and Ukraine, where he negotiated and managed many activities relating to the regulation and development of banking and the financial sector, tax policy and administration, and privatization in the agricultural and energy sectors. During 1997-2000, he was the team leader for USAID’s performance-based Africa Trade and Investment Policy (ATRIP) reform program. At the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, Mr. Dod was chief of the International Finance Division’s Emerging Markets Section, from 1977-87, and assisted in developing stabilization and financial-sector adjustment programs for Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina. In the area of U.S. bank supervision, he worked closely with federal bank examiners on regulatory assessments and provisions relating to country risks and non-performing international loans; he also worked as an economic consultant at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. He studied for a PhD in Economics at Stanford University.
Erin Endean is Vice President of Nathan Associates’ Trade, Business, and Economic Growth Practice. Ms. Endean oversees a portfolio of projects in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Latin America encompassing trade and investment policy and promotion; enterprise and industry development; macroeconomic, fiscal and financial policy; institutional capacity building; workforce development; and integrated economic growth topics. From October 2001-September 2006, Ms. Endean was Chief of Party for Nathan Associates’ Trade Capacity Building project. In that capacity, she managed economic and trade experts working in more than two dozen developing countries, developed “best practice” publications on aspects of trade capacity building, and kept USAID staff up-to-date on trade and development issues through briefing papers, seminars, and training sessions. Over the five-year project, she trained more than 240 USAID officers on trade policy, institutions, and trade capacity building best practices and resources in seminars held in Washington, D.C.; Quito, Ecuador; Antigua, Guatemala; and Geneva, Switzerland. With more than 20 years of professional experience in both the public and private sectors, Ms. Endean has broad expertise in economic development, investment, trade policy, and multilateral and regional trading arrangements, particularly in Asia. Before joining Nathan Associates, she worked for an international consulting firm founded by former U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Carla A. Hills. There, she advised U.S. firms on market access and investment issues in foreign markets. Her advice covered a variety of sectors—footwear, consumer products, processed food, beverages, automobile parts, agricultural commodities, specialty steel, and financial services. She also advised on the prospects and implications of China’s membership in the WTO. Earlier, she worked at the Office of the USTR as Director of Japanese and Chinese Affairs. A frequent traveler to China, she has worked in Asian developing countries and speaks Mandarin Chinese.
Caroline Fawcett, Ph.D. has over 20 years of experience in designing and managing labor market and workforce systems policies and programs worldwide. Her work includes both domestic and international projects, primarily in the areas of workforce training, employment and labor market services, and trade integration and privatization. She has worked in 28 countries and has extensive experience in Latin America. Most recently she has been directing Rapid Workforce Assessments in the ANE Region for USAID, with specific studies of the Philippines, India, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Many of these projects involved the design of pilot projects and needs assessments, management of large and complex workforce training programs in various sectors, including youth and gender employment programs.
Heywood Fleisig is Director of Research at the Center for the Economic Analysis of Law (CEAL) in Bethesda, Maryland. During his tenure, CEAL has prepared studies, draft laws, and reform programs for more than twenty-five countries in areas including frameworks for secured lending, and for company, civil, and land registration. Before joining CEAL, Mr. Fleisig served at the World Bank in the research department and in the offices of the chief economists for Asia and Latin America. Before retiring, he was Economic Advisor for the Private Sector Development department where he was responsible for project evaluation for all Bank private sector development projects. Before joining the Bank, Mr. Fleisig served on the economic staffs of the Congressional Budget Office and the Federal Reserve Board. Prior to that, he taught at Cornell.
Mr. Fleisig received his Ph.D. in economics from Yale. In recent years he has written mainly on the economic analysis and economic impact of the reform of legal systems, focusing on secured transactions, mortgages, and systems of civil and land registration
Mark Gallagher is an economist at Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI) since 2003 and serves as Chief of Party of USAID’s worldwide Fiscal Reform and Economic Governance Project. Mark is a seasoned economist with wide experience working with donor agencies and counterpart governments. He has designed, implemented, and evaluated economic policy reform projects, especially fiscal reform projects, since 1984. Mark has been an advisor, team leader, or Chief of Party in Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, and Central Europe. He has also served as a USAID foreign service officer and later as PSC, working in Liberia, Washington, and El Salvador. Mark holds a Ph.D. in economics and is the author of two books and contributor to other books, several refereed academic journal articles, and numerous reports, manuals, and computer models. He has both taught at the university level and led seminars in many areas of economics and public finance.
Gene V. George has had a 30 year career with USAID beginning as an International Development Intern (IDI) engineer. He has served in a number of positions as an engineer, energy, environment and project development officer. During his tenure with USAID he has had assignments in USAID/W in the ANE and E&E bureaus, and in Haiti, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Russia. His most recent field work was as Mission Director for USAID/Bangladesh. He is currently the Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of Human Resources. In addition to his USAID experience, he began his international development career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal.
Victoria Gunnarsson has been a Research Officer in the Expenditure Policy Division of the Fiscal Affairs Department since 2005. Her work mainly focuses on measuring the efficiency and flexibility of health and education expenditure in various country contexts. Previously at the World Bank Institute, she worked on designing and interpreting impact evaluations of the effectiveness of capacity enhancement programs. Her research has focused on the impact of child labor on educational attainment of young children in developing countries and the effect of school autonomy on schooling outcomes. Ms. Gunnarsson holds a Masters of Science in Economics.
Stephen Hadley has been the Director of USAID’s Office of Economic Growth in the Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade since 2000. He has had long-term assignments in Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Moldova and Ukraine. He graduated with a B.A. in Economics and a BSc. in Geophysics from Yale University and received a Masters Degree in International Relations from Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies.
Arnold C. Harberger is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and Chief Economic Advisor to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Professor Harberger is a leading international expert and practitioner on economic development and consults widely with international organizations and with developing countries in Central America, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. His advice on such matters as inflation control and real exchange rate management has been critical in the successful solution of macroeconomic problems in a wide range of developing countries. In the course of his long and distinguished career, Professor Harberger has made path-breaking contributions to the field of economics on the now widely accepted theory and methodology for measuring the gains or losses of a proposed policy change. Nearly every working economist utilizes “Harberger triangles” either formally or tacitly to measure the effects of economic change. Professor Harberger received his Ph.D. degree at the University of Chicago. Afterwards, he spent 38 years with the faculty of economics there. He has been Professor of Economics at UCLA since 1984. Other academic positions included visiting professorships at Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Paris, as well as the MIT Center for International Studies in New Delhi and the Institute for the Economy in Transition in Moscow. Professor Harberger has served as a consultant to sixteen foreign governments, nine U.S. government agencies (including USAID), eight international agencies and foundations (including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the Organization of American States). Numbered among his students at the University of Chicago and UCLA are more than a dozen central bank presidents and two dozen foreign government ministers. Professor Harberger is past president of the American Economic Association, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Henrietta Holsman Fore is Acting Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Acting Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance.
Robert F. Ichord, Jr. is Chief of Energy and Infrastructure in USAID’s Bureau for Europe and Eurasia. He manages and supports energy and infrastructure programs and projects in the countries of the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe. He plays a leading role in U.S. Government policy and program development with respect to electric power restructuring and regulatory reform in Europe and Eurasia and issues related to energy security, supply diversification, nuclear safety and global climate change. He initiated the first U.S. energy assistance programs in Eastern Europe in 1990-91 and in the New Independent States in early 1992. He pioneered Utility and Regulatory Partnership programs with the U.S. Energy Association and the U.S. National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. He is recipient of the Agency’s George Marshall and Science and Technology Awards; and in May 2006, received a Superior Honor Award from the Department of State for his role in achieving the Athens Energy Community Treaty and regional energy programs in Central Asia. Dr. Ichord was previously Chief of Energy and Natural Resources in the Asia, Near East and Europe Bureau. From 1978-1989, he played a key role in developing $1 billion of new energy assistance projects in power generation and distribution, energy efficiency and rural energy systems, with particular emphasis on Pakistan and the ASEAN region. Prior to joining USAID’s Bureau for Asia in 1978, he was point man for energy and developing countries at the Department of Energy, representing DOE at meetings with the World Bank and the International Energy Agency on North-South energy issues. He holds a B.A. from Denison University in International Relations (1969); an M.A. in International Development from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University (1971); and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Hawaii (1975), where he was awarded a fellowship from the East-West Center Technology and Development Institute. He has authored numerous articles on energy and development, including a book on Indonesia’s Energy Policy.
Ron Israel is Vice President at Education Development Center (EDC), where he serves as Director of the Global Learning Group. During his tenure in this position, EDC has become a leader in the field of youth workforce development, international formal and non-formal education and human capacity development. Mr. Israel has worked with groups of scholars and teachers from countries around the world, facilitating projects within a broad array of cultural settings. He has over twenty years of consulting and project management experience in the fields of education, health, the environment, and civil society programs. He has consulted for a variety of EDC clients including USAID, the United Nations Development Programme, UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO, and the World Bank. Most recently, he has authored the Workforce Development Program Guide, published under the USAID Global Workforce in Transition Project, 2007.
Ali Kamel has been a senior economist and team leader in USAID/Egypt’s Office of Economic Growth (Policy and Private Sector) since 1989 and co-manages the technical assistance and cash transfer economic policy reform activities. Over this 18-year period, he has negotiated and managed activities relating to policy reform in the agricultural sector, trade, customs, privatization, fiscal, labor and financial sectors. During 1999-2003, he was the team leader for USAID’s cash transfer Development Support Program I and II (DSP I and II). He serves as co-CTO for the $125 million umbrella Technical Assistance for Policy Reform II (TAPR II) program, which covers seven components in trade and customs, financial sector and banking, fiscal policy and budgets, commercial law, regulatory reform and competitiveness, legal and business/economic education, and program support activities. He is currently managing a nationwide regulatory reform (guillotine) activity with 12 ministries and several private associations.
Hajdar Korbi is Head of the Macroeconomics Department in Kosovo’s Ministry of Economy and Finance. In this role, he is responsible for the production and regular updating of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, including the analysis necessary for the formulation, resolution, and implementation of economic policies. He also coordinates the work on producing the Kosovo Development Strategy and Plan 2007(8)-2013. Other duties include regular macro-fiscal projections; in-depth briefings to the Ministry; and reports on the main macro-economic policy issues and developments in Kosovo. Mr. Korbi also teaches at the American University of Kosovo. His prior experience mostly related to the banking sector, in particular to lending activities and auditing. Mr. Korbi received a Masters in Economics from Staffordshire University, UK and also completed a research program in Public Policy at London School of Economics.
Agim Krasniqi has been Budget Director for the Ministry of Economy and Finance since 2003. Krasniqi is responsible for preparation of Kosovo’s Public Investment Program, fiscal impact assessments related to new legislation, institutional capacity building and modernization of Kosovo’s budget system. He is broadly responsible for strengthening public expenditure management, including improving and coordinating policy formulation to ensure a linkage between sources of allocation, enhancing transparency in the process of budget formulation, increasing efficiency in public spending, increasing fiscal discipline in the process of budget execution, and improving the budget system and budget procedures. Mr. Krasniqi has a Masters degree in Economics from University of Prishtina.
Stephen Lewarne is Executive Vice President for The Services Group (TSG). Dr. Lewarne oversees all of TSG’s technical divisions. He previously served as oversees as Minister of the Department for Reconstruction while also USAID’s Chief of Party under the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo. Lewarne worked as a Macroeconomic Policy Advisor in the Philippines, advising the International Finance Group of the Department of Finance on macroeconomics and pension reform. He was also Chief of Party for USAID’s Monetary Reform Project in Central Asia. Stephen has held several private sector posts in the oil and gas industry in Central Asia and Russia. As the Advisor to the U.S. National Research Council in Washington D.C., he briefed senior policy makers on issues related to the break up of the Soviet Union. He holds a Ph.D. from Indiana University in Monetary Policy and Macroeconomics.
Robert Litan is vice president of Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation. Dr. Litan has been affiliated with The Brookings Institution for nearly 20 years, first as a Senior Fellow and since 1996 as director of Economic Studies and holder of the Cabot Family Chair in Economics. At Brookings, he led a team of economists monitoring the global economy and seeking answers to economic policy issues in the U.S. and around the world. The group’s rigorous, independent research was designed to increase the public’s understanding of how the economy works and how to make it better. During his time with Brookings, Litan authored or co-authored more than 25 books and 200 articles for professional journals and magazines. He co-founded and serves as the Director of the AEI-Brookings Joint Center on Regulatory Studies. Dr. Litan has had a distinguished career in public service. He served on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers (1977-79), as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department (1993-95), and Associate Director of the Office of Management and Budget (1995-96). He also has been a consultant to the Treasury Department on financial policy issues. Dr. Litan received his B.S. degree in Economics, graduating summa cum laude, from the Wharton School Department of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania; his J.D. from Yale Law School; and both a Master of Philosophy and Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University.
Roger Manring, Senior Vice President at Nathan Associates, has been involved in consultancies in the United States and more than 40 countries over the past 25 years. His technical expertise covers applied economic and financial analysis, strategic planning, project development, and privatization in several sectors. He has also performed detailed economic policy appraisals in post-conflict situations. In the UN-sponsored negotiations for settlement of the Cyprus Problem (2004), for example, he was Chairman of the UN’s Technical Committee on Economic and Financial Aspects of Implementation of the proposed Annan Plan. Under Mr. Manring’s leadership, Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot negotiators and international experts addressed issues ranging from property settlement to banking, trade and investment, and public finance in a unified Cyprus economy. This service built on several earlier economic analyses that Mr. Manring prepared for Cyprus peacemakers. More recently, Mr. Manring was principal author and analyst for a comprehensive study of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the developing world. Foreign Direct Investment: Putting it to Work in Developing Countries, prepared for USAID, reviews the benefits and costs of FDI in developing economies, and evaluates FDI trends, drivers and future directions, including issues developing countries face in attracting FDI. Mr. Manring directed Nathan Associates’ international consulting operations between 1992 and 2000, with full responsibility for the performance of the firm’s International Group. During this time, he also managed large-scale consulting assignments and continues in this latter role today. He holds an A.B. in Government from Bowdoin College, an M.I.A. in Economic Development from Columbia University, and an M.A. in Economics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Mario Mansour is a Senior Economist in the Tax Policy Division of the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department. His work covers a wide range of issues in the tax policy area, including: leading and participating in missions to IMF member countries to advise on tax policy and administration; contributing to internal IMF policy papers; and undertaking research on policy practices in IMF member countries. Prior to joining the IMF, Mr. Mansour worked for a Canadian consultancy from 2000 to 2004, where he played a lead role in tax reform projects in the Middle East and Eastern Caribbean islands. Between 1992 and 2000, Mr. Mansour worked as an Economist in the Tax Policy Branch of the Canadian Department of Finance. He contributed to the work of the Technical Committee on Business Taxation (the Mintz Committee), which led to a general reform of the Canadian federal business tax system at the end of the 1990s. Mr. Mansour holds an MA in Economics from the Université de Montréal (1992) and an MBA from the University of Ottawa (1998).
Heather McHugh has 17 years of international experience in the strategic planning, implementation, management, program evaluation, and policy analysis of international development programs, especially conflict-related responses. She is a thought leader in media, conflict management, civil society, and community mobilization in conflict and transition environments, with a focus on large complex regional and multi-regional programs. Ms. McHugh provides technical assistance to U.S. government agencies that focuses on interagency collaboration. She has managed humanitarian operations, and has worked with Fortune 50 companies, public affairs firms, nonprofit organizations, and management consulting companies. She currently serves as Technical Backstop for the Liberia Community Infrastructure Project (LCIP), Task Order Manager for LCIP II, and Task Order Manager for BRDG-Liberia.
John W. Mellor is President of John Mellor Associates, a policy consulting firm. He was previously Vice-President of Abt Associates. He was the founding Director of the International Food Policy Research Institute; Chief Economist of USAID; and Professor at Cornell University – in Economics, Agricultural Economics, and Asian Studies. He has been a Visiting Professor at Balwant Rajput College, the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, and the American University, Beirut. He has led numerous missions for USAID projects, international financial institutions, and foundations. He was awarded the Presidential Hunger Award (the White House USA) and the Wihuri Prize (Finland) for his work in reducing hunger in the world. He has won numerous prizes from professional associations for the quality of his research work on development. These include prizes for best research and for research of continuing importance for his seminal book on the economics of agricultural development. He is author of eight other books and numerous journal articles. Mellor is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Agricultural Economics Association. He received Fulbright, Social Science Research Council, Rockefeller Foundation and Agricultural Development Council fellowships.
Michele Moloney-Kitts is a foreign service officer and a nurse midwife who has worked extensively domestically and, for the past 15 years, internationally in the area of women’s and children’s health and HIV/AIDS. Domestically, she launched one of the first HIV programs for pregnant women in the city of Philadelphia. Internationally, she has directed programs in HIV/AIDS and Maternal Child Health that have provided assistance to over 80 countries. She has served as a Foreign Service officer in Morocco, Cambodia and South Africa. In Cambodia she led the development one of the first HIV/AIDS programs with NGOs and the government in Cambodia. She has recently returned from South Africa where she served as the senior technical advisor for HIV/AIDS for USAID’s Southern Africa regional program, working to strengthen HIV programs across 10 countries in the most affected part of the world. She now works in Washington with Ambassador Mark Dybul in the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator where she serves as chief of the Program Services Division. In this capacity she is responsible for oversight of implementation of the President’s Emergency Plan for HIV/AIDS in the fifteen focus countries and other bilateral programs and coordinating technical assistance for international HIV/AIDS across the U.S. Government implementing agencies.
Fabio Nehme’s career has been dedicated to the development of new energy markets in developing countries. As an Officer at IFC’s Sustainability Innovation Group, an internal incubator with over $200 million in programs supporting clean energy companies and markets in developing countries, Fabio currently leads a number of IFC initiatives related to renewable energy, clean technologies, and energy efficiency in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Among other initiatives, he has developed the project Lighting Africa, a World Bank Group initiative that tries to innovate by leveraging the large-private sector support to increase sustainable access to modern, off-grid energy services in Africa. Prior to IFC, Fabio was a manager at the global energy unit of Alcoa, the global aluminum group. He advised Alcoa, as well as global banks and energy investors, on energy infrastructure investments in developing countries. In addition, he advised governments on issues related to energy sector regulation and attracting private investments to the energy sector. Prior to Alcoa, Fabio worked in the financial sector, working with multinationals in corporate and structured finance. He holds an MBA from IMD (Switzerland), an M.A. in International Policy from SAIS (Johns Hopkins), and is a Certified Energy Manager by the American Association of Energy Engineers.
Mary Ott joins USAID/EGAT this month as the Director of the Economic Growth Office. She began her USAID career in 1984, and was assigned as a program economist overseas in Guatemala, the Eastern Caribbean, Panama, and El Salvador, and in Washington as Chief Economist for the Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean. Since 2000, she has served as Deputy Mission Director in Bangladesh and in Egypt, and most recently spent a year detailed to the Trade Capacity Building Office of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Her academic background includes a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from the University of California at Davis.
Jolyne Sanjak is Senior Director for Property Rights and Land Policy at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, responsible for assessing the relevant aspects of MCC Compact development and for oversight of Compact implementation. She joined MCC in February 2005, bringing close to 20 years of experience related to land tenure, property registration, and land markets as well as to broader themes related to rural development and economic growth. Prior to joining MCC, Dr. Sanjak worked as lead specialist on property rights and land policy and for rural development in USAID’s Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean. She also contributed significantly to USAID global efforts on special themes such as remittances and land conflict management. Dr. Sanjak began her work with the U.S. Government after spending many years as an assistant professor of economics at the State University of New York at Albany, teaching a diverse set of courses including microeconomics, urban economics, environmental economics and graduate level courses in economic development. She actively engaged in research focused mainly on land tenure, agricultural productivity, and land market access by the poor. She participated in all aspects of research including survey design and implementation, data analysis and publication of results. During this time period, Jolyne also worked as a research associate and project manager in Macedonia and Honduras with the University of Wisconsin, Land Tenure Center. Finally, she engaged with the FAO, World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank in preparing policy papers and workshops related to land policy. Dr. Sanjak holds a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from the University of Wisconsin. She also holds a MS in agricultural economics with a specialization in natural resource management from Penn State University.
Jackee Schafer is Assistant Administrator for USAID’s Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade (EGAT).
Carl Schramm leads the Kauffman Foundation, America’s largest foundation dedicated to advancing entrepreneurial success. Hailed as the “evangelist of entrepreneurship” by The Economist, he is recognized as one of the world’s foremost thinkers on the role and importance of entrepreneurship in supporting a nation’s economic stability and growth. In 2007, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez tapped Schramm to chair the Department of Commerce’s Measuring Innovation in the 21st Century Economic Advisory Committee. Schramm’s recent books, Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, with Robert Litan and William Baumol, and The Entrepreneurial Imperative, are regarded as emerging classics, providing new insight into the American and international economies. Trained as an economist and lawyer, with experience in business, public policy and academia, Schramm has led the Kauffman Foundation to develop innovative programs aimed at transforming entrepreneurship education, the technology transfer process, the availability of seed capital for entrepreneurs, and economic research. He has been a professor at The Johns Hopkins University, an executive in the health insurance industry, and the cofounder and founder of a number of companies in the health care finance and information technology areas. He is a Batten Fellow at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and the 2005 recipient of the University of Rochester’s George Eastman Medal. Mr. Schramm’s work has appeared in publications including Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Newsweek, and Inc.
Dr. James T. (“Jay”) Smith is a development economist and economic demographer working as an independent consultant. As Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for USAID’s Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade from 2003 to 2006, he oversaw the work of the Offices of Economic Growth, Poverty Reduction, Education, and Development Credit. Smith retired from the Senior Foreign Service in 2006 after 29 years with USAID.
From 1998 to 2003, he served as Director of the Development Planning Office in the Bureau for Africa, responsible for strategic planning and resource allocation. From 1994 to 1998, he was Deputy Director for USAID/Mozambique with a portfolio of more than $60 million annually and a staff of over 100 employees. As the Africa Bureau’s Senior Economist from 1989 to 1994, he traveled widely throughout Africa in support of USAID programs. Smith also served as Program Economist in Morocco (1983-1989) and Burkina Faso (1978-1983). He began his career with USAID as an International Development Intern (IDI) in 1977.
Marijn Verhoeven is a Deputy Division Chief in the Expenditure Policy Division of the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department. He received his education from Tilburg University in the Netherlands . Mr. Verhoeven joined the IMF in 1994, where he has spent most of his time in the Fiscal Affairs Department. He also was the Fund’s resident representative in Bangladesh from 2001–04. His areas of expertise include the efficiency of government spending, social protection issues, the economics of pensions, and public-private partnership
Helle Weeke is a Principal Development Specialist in the Economic Policy practice at DAI. Before returning to the home office in May 2007, she was COP and Senior Technical Advisor for the USAID-funded Vietnam Competitiveness Initiative (VNCI) in Hanoi, Vietnam; and, from 2002 to 2006, Ms. Weeke served as a Trade Lawyer/Legal Advisor to the USAID-funded Support for Trade Acceleration (STAR-Vietnam) project. At VNCI, she oversaw the finalization of the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) 2006 report and the launch of the survey of businesses for the PCI 2007. She also launched new initiatives with provincial and national government counterparts to improve the business enabling environment through systematic regulatory/ procedural reforms. As a legal advisor to STAR, Ms. Weeke provided technical assistance for the implementation of the U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement and for moving Vietnam towards WTO accession. She focused primarily on legal and regulatory reforms necessary to implement Vietnam’s commitments for trade in goods and resolution of commercial disputes, including a complete revision of the legal framework for contracts and modernization of the rules for commercial arbitration, as well as many other laws and regulations. She also made presentations at numerous workshops with members of the National Assembly and senior government officials. Before joining DAI, Ms. Weeke was an attorney in private practice where she specialized in resolving international trade and commercial disputes and advising clients on transportation, maritime, and intellectual property issues. She also worked as an international trade consultant, conducting research on international trade issues for the World Trade Organization, foreign governments, and businesses. Ms. Weeke holds LL.M. and J.D. degrees, as well as a Master of International Public Policy degree.
Leah Werchick is a senior analyst with USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI). During her fifteen-plus years in crisis intervention and post-conflict assistance, she has worked in Darfur, Iraq, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Bosnia, Haiti, Angola and Suriname. Her focus areas include protection of civilians in complex emergencies, community-based methods for post-conflict stabilization and recovery, political participation and transitional justice. Prior to joining OTI in 2002, Ms. Werchick worked for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Commission on Missing Persons and other international organizations; she began her career as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Comoro Islands. She holds a J.D. (summa cum laude) from American University and a B.A. from the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Stacey Young, Ph.D. Stacey Young is Senior Knowledge Management Advisor for USAID’s Microenterprise Development office, where she manages an award-winning Knowledge Management & Communications program that facilitates knowledge sharing among USAID’s staff, its partners and the broader microenterprise community to improve microenterprise practice via the www.microlinks.org website. In addition, she manages the office’s work in Base of the Pyramid/Social Enterprise initiatives, and contributes to knowledge generation in social performance measurement, and gender & microfinance. Prior to joining USAID, Dr. Young lived and worked as an independent consultant in Kenya and Uganda, working in the sectors of health/family planning, HIV/AIDS, agriculture, and development research; before that, she taught political science, women’s studies and writing at Skidmore College and at Cornell University, where she earned a Ph.D. in Government. She is the author of Changing the Wor(l)d: Discourse, Politics, and the Feminist Movement; co-editor of Rowing Upstream: Snapshots of Pioneers of the Information Age in Africa; and author of Philanthropy for Social Change: Four decades of Ford Foundation grant making in Eastern Africa.