Panelists

Ms Mona Shrestha Adhikari, PhD is the Executive Director of Enterprise for Management, Economic Reform & Gender Equality (EMERGE) and also works as an independent development consultant. She believes in equitable, inclusive and sustainable socio-economic development and is passionate about women’s empowerment. She has more than 25 years of experience working in the private sector, national and international non-governmental organizations and international organizations.

Her experience ranges from working with Organizations like the World Trade Organizations (WTO) and the International Trade Centre (ITC) in Geneva, the Economic Policy Incubator Project of Department for International Development (DFID)/Palladium Group in Nepal, and the Australian Red Cross Society. She also served as a Gender and Trade Advisor of South Asia Regional Trade Facilitation Programme (SARTFP), a project supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Australian Government.

She has also worked with Action Aid offices in Nepal and Sri Lanka, Forum for Protection of Public Interest (Pro Public) and South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics and Environment (SAWTEE) on areas relating to education, child rights, trade and development, women rights and gender equality.

David Hulme is a Professor of Development Studies at The University of Manchester where he is Executive Director of the Global Development Institute and CEO of the Effective States and Inclusive Development Research Centre.

Professor Hulme has been awarded an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) for services to Research and International Development. Through a distinguished 40-year career in development, Professor Hulme’s research and passionate commitment to create positive change has helped to lift millions of people out of extreme poverty.

Professor Hulme has worked extensively all over the world, including South Asia, East Africa and the Pacific, and his work has improved policy, practice and the understanding of poverty and inequality across the globe. His main research focus has been on Bangladesh where he served as Team Leader of the international support team for the Government of Bangladesh’s National Social Protection Strategy (2012-2014), he inspired positive government action and encouraged further donor investment.

Professor Hulme’s research findings have also helped microfinance institutions around the world to improve their impact on the lives of the poor. As the director of the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (2000-2009), Professor Hulme was integral to efforts to understand and identify practical solutions and policy guidance to help the poor escape from the cycle of chronic poverty. For decades, Professor Hulme’s work has shaped the research agenda and policy implications of development studies, resulting in improvements in the lives of millions of people living in poverty around the world.

Dr Fahmida Khatun is the Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), a leading think tank in South Asia. She has accomplished Masters in Economics from Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh. She did another Masters in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics and PhD in Economics from the University College London, UK. She did her Post-Doctoral research at the Earth Institute, Columbia University, USA as a Fulbright Scholar in 2015.

Prior to joining CPD she worked as a Research Fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies; as an Environment Specialist for the UNDP; as an Economist for the USAID Mission in Bangladesh. She also undertook part time teaching at universities in the UK and Bangladesh. Dr Khatun delivers lectures on contemporary national and global issues at selective top institutes of Bangladesh.

Dr Khatun sits regularly on in various policy making bodies. She was a Director of the state owned Janata Bank Limited during 2008-2011. She served as a Director of the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Foundation of Bangladesh during 2010-2013. She was a member of several government bodies including the following: Advisory Committee on Services of the Ministry of Commerce; Expert Committee on Identifying the Environmental Goods in Bangladesh, Ministry of Environment and Forest; National Steering Committee on Evaluation of the Implementation of Paris Declaration, Economic Relations Divisions.

Professor Wahiduddin Mahmud is an Eminent Economist of Bangladesh. He was a Professor of Economics at the University of Dhaka. He acted as a member of the caretaker government of Bangladesh in 1996 where he was in charge of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Planning. He is currently a member of the UN Committee for Development Policy (UN-CDP). Professor Mahmud is also acting as the senior country advisor of International Growth Centre (IGC) at London School of Economics, and the Chairman of South Asia Network of Economic Research Institutes (SANEI). He has frequently consulted for many national and international organizations and has held visiting appointments at Cambridge University, IDS at Sussex University, IFPRI, UNDP and the World Bank, amongst others. He was the co-founder and a former chairman of Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), the apex organization for funding the micro-credit programmes of NGOs in Bangladesh. He was also the founder chairman of Institute of Microfinance (InM). He has authored several books and numerous journal papers on a wide range of topics in development economics.

Professor Deepak Nayyar is an internationally renowned Development Economist. He is Emeritus Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and an Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. Throughout his long and distinguished teaching career, he has served as a Professor of Economics at various universities across the globe including the New School for Social Research, New York, University of Oxford, University of Sussex, and the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. Professor Deepak was also the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Delhi from 2000 to 2005. He has also had a significant presence in public policy as Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India and Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance.

Professor Nayyar is the Chairman of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. And he is a Distinguished Professor at the Council for Social Development, New Delhi. He is Chairman of the Sameeksha Trust, which publishes Economic and Political Weekly. Professor Nayyar is Vice Chairman of the South Centre, Geneva. He served as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the World Institute for Development Economics Research, UNU-WIDER, Helsinki from 2001 to 2008 and as Vice President of the International Association of Universities, Paris, from 2004 to 2008. He was on the Board of Directors of the Social Science Research Council in the United States from 2001 to 2007 and was Chairman of the Advisory Council for the Department of International Development, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford, from 2004 to 2007. He has received the VKRV Rao award for his contribution to research in Economics and the Malcolm Adiseshiah award for his lifetime contribution to Development Studies.He has been President of the Indian Economic Association. He is also on the Editorial Board of several professional journals.

He has published papers and books on a wide range of subjects. In addition, he has written extensively on economic development in India. His most recent work is on the remarkable economic transformation, and rise, of Asia during the past fifty years.

Martín Rama is currently the Chief Economist for the Latin America and Caribbean region of the World Bank. From 2013 to 2018 he held the same position for the South Asia region, based in Delhi. Previously was the Director of the World Development Report (WDR) 2013, on Jobs. 2002 to 2010, Martín Rama was based in Hanoi, where he led the economic program of the World Bank in Vietnam. Prior to moving to operations, he spent ten years with the research department of the World Bank. Martín Rama gained his degree in economics from the Universidad de la República (Uruguay) in 1981 and his PhD in macroeconomics from the Université de Paris I (France) in 1985. He is affiliated with several think tanks in developing countries. In parallel with his World Bank duties, from 1990 to 2005 he was visiting professor at the graduate program in development economics at the Université de Paris I.

Professor Rehman Sobhan is a leading Bangladeshi economist and scholar who has made significant contributions to the field of economics in Bangladesh. Throughout his long career, he has worked with great sincerity and dedication to improve economic and social welfare, particularly for the poor. After being awarded an MA in Economics at the University of Cambridge, he started his career at the faculty of Economics at University of Dhaka and retired as Professor in 1977. His intellectual contributions were a valuable asset to the Bangladeshi Liberation War and since then he has been actively engaged in public policy and advocacy. Formerly, Professor Sobhan served as a member of the first Planning Commission of Bangladesh, member of the Advisory Council of the Caretaker Government (1991) and Director General of BIDS. Currently, Professor Rehman is the Chairman of the Centre of Policy Dialogue (CPD) of Bangladesh.

An economist whose ideas were central to the tenets of a nation’s struggle for freedom, a visionary whose initiatives have defined institutions facilitating knowledge and an extraordinary intellectual who has inspired generations of thinkers and doers. SANEM is honored to present Professor Rehman Sobhan as the Distinguished Speaker at the 2nd SANEM International Development Conference (SIDC) 2021.

Dr Nisha Taneja is Professor at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi, India. She obtained her PhD in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Masters in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, India. She has experience of over 30 years in policy-oriented research in the areas of trade and trade facilitation. Dr Nisha Taneja has also worked as an international consultant with the World Bank and Asian Development Bank on trade, non-tariff barriers, supply chain analysis, transport, logistics and transit. She has also worked as Lead International Consultant for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and SAARC Agriculture Centre.