Chairs

Prabir De is a Professor at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS). He is also the Coordinator of ASEAN-India Centre (AIC) at RIS. De works in the field of international economics and has research interests in international trade and development. He was a visiting Fellow of the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), Tokyo, and visiting Senior Fellow of United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), Bangkok. He has been conducting policy research for the Government of India and several international organizations. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from the Jadavpur University, Calcutta. He has contributed several research papers in international journals and written books on trade and development. He is the Editor of The South Asia Economic Journal, published by Sage.

Professor S. R. Osmani is Professor of Development Economics at Ulster University in the United Kingdom and Visiting Professor at BRAC University, Dhaka. He obtained PhD in economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and worked at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, Dhaka and the World Institute for Development Economics Research, Helsinki, before joining Ulster University. He has published widely on issues related to poverty, inequality, hunger, famine, nutrition, microcredit, rights-based approach to development, and development problems in general. His publications include Economic Inequality and Group Welfare; Nutrition and Poverty; Macroeconomics of Poverty Reduction: The Case Study of Bangladesh; Poverty and Vulnerability in Rural Bangladesh and Theory and Practice of Microcredit.

Dr Pandey has more than 25 years of experiences working on issues of trade, economy and development. Currently, he is the Chairman at South Asia Watch on Trade Economics and Environment (SAWTEE), a consortium of South Asian NGOs, working to build capacity of concerned stakeholders in the context of liberalization and globalization. He holds a PhD in economics and master’s degrees in business management and in economics. Dr Pandey has served as a member of the UN Secretary General High-Level Panel on Technology Bank. He is listed in the Indicative Panelist of the Dispute Settlement Body of the WTO. He is a member in various committees of the Government of Nepal, including Board of Trade and Nepal Business Forum. Dr Pandey has served as an economic expert in Prime Minister’s Advisory Board and was a member of the National Planning Commission, an apex policy making body of the Government of Nepal. He was one of the negotiators for Nepal’s accession to the WTO. Dr Pandey has also worked for the UNDP in Nepal on the issues of multilateral trade integration and trade-related capacity building. He was a faculty at the Central Department of Economics, Tribhuvan University and has extensively published on the issues of international trade, macroeconomics and development.

Dr Sabina Faiz Rashid, is Dean and Professor at BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health at BRAC University. She has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Social Anthropology, and a PhD in Medical Anthropology and Public Health from The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. She joined the School in 2004 and was appointed as Dean in 2013. In addition to the overall leadership and management of the School, Dr Rashid has been integral to the founding and growth of the international Master of Public Health (MPH) program and the School. The MPH program was established in 2005 and till date has 530 alumni from 30 countries.

Dr Rashid specializes in ethnographic and qualitative research with a focus on urban slum communities, adolescents, and marginalized groups (i.e., refugee populations, sexual minorities, etc.). She is particularly interested in examining the impact of structural and intersectional factors on the ability of these populations to realize their health and rights and access to services. In 2008, she founded the Centre for Gender, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (GSRHR) and co-founded the Centre for Urban Equity and Health (CUEH) in 2013; both focus on research, capacity building with a focus on influencing program designs and policies in the country.

Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri has been heading Sustainable Development Policy Institute since 2007. He is the member of different policy making forums and advisory boards, including Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, Pakistan Climate Change Council, National Advisory Committee of Planning Commission of Pakistan; Trade Policy Advisory Committee, Agricultural Universities Vice Chancellor’s Search Committee, Govt of Punjab, Board of Studies & Board of Faculty of various public sector universities and different committees/councils formed by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, Ministry of Planning, Development & Reforms, Ministry of Finance, and Ministry of Climate Change among others.

He is also serving on different international policy making forums, including advisory board of intergovernmental organization CAREC Think-Tanks Network; Member of the steering committee of World Commission on Forced Displacement (UK); & Co-Chair of the Board of Climate Action Network South Asia. He also served on three judicial commissions on environmental issues as well as the Member of Board of Management of Pakistan State Oil (PSO) where he chaired PSO Board's Audit and Accounts Committee.

He Publishes in academic journals, a columnist and also contributes his policy analysis on sustainable development issues both in print and electronic media. He is also editor-in-chief of SDPI peer reviewed journal, “Journal of Development Policy, Research and Practice”. Dr Suleri earned his PhD in food security from University of Greenwich, UK.