| Current CDP members (2025 – 2027) PDF [162 KB] | * Re-appointed | ||
Sabina Alkire , USA
Director, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, University of Oxford
Director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), an economic research centre within the Oxford Department of International Development at the University of Oxford, England, established in 2007. She is a fellow of the Human Development and Capability Association. She has worked with organizations such as the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, the United Nations Human Development Programme Human Development Report Office, the European Commission, and the UK’s Department for International Development. Alkire and fellow OPHI Research Associate James Foster developed the Alkire Foster Method, a widely-used method of measuring multidimensional poverty. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Oxford.
Carlos Alvarado, Costa Rica
Professor of Practice of Diplomacy, Tufts University
Professor of Practice of Diplomacy at Tufts University, The Fletcher School. Served as the 48th President of the Republic of Costa Rica from May 2018 to May 2022. Prior government leadership service includes tenures as Minister of Labor and Social Security (2016-2018), as Minister of Human Development and Social Inclusion (2014–2016) and as Executive President of the Joint Social Welfare Institute, responsible for implementing social protection and promoting poverty alleviation programs. Before entering politics, he worked for Procter and Gamble, Latin America. He holds a Master of Arts from the University of Sussex, and a Master of Science from the University of Costa Rica.
Debapriya Bhattacharya, Bangladesh
Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue
Macro-economist and public policy analyst. Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), and Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD). Member of the Supervisory Board, BRAC International and Founding Chair, Southern Voice network of think tanks. “Former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the WTO, UN Offices, and Other International Organizations in Geneva and Vienna (2007-2009)” and concurrently accredited to the Holy See in the Vatican. Other former positions include serving as President of UNCTAD’s governing board as well as the coordinator of the LDC Group in the UN System in Geneva and Special Adviser on LDCs to the Secretary General, Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), and Senior Research Fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS). Senior Fulbright Fellow at the Centre for Global Development (CGD), Washington, D.C. He holds an MSc (Economics) and PhD (Economics) from the Plekhanov Institute of National Economy, Moscow. He undertook his post-doctoral research at Queen Elizabeth House, in Oxford.
Ha-Joon Chang, Republic of Korea
Distinguished Research Professor, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London
Distinguished Research Professor, Department of Economics at SOAS University of London, where he also serves as Co-director, Development Leadership Dialogues Institute and Co-Director, Centre for Sustainable Structural Transformation (CSST). Former Professor of Political of Development, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge and former Director of the Centre of Development Studies, University of Cambridge. Project Leader on “Industrial Organisation and Industrial Policy”, Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Centre for Business Research, Department of Applied Economics, University of Cambridge. Project Coordinator on “Development of East and South-East Asia and a New Development Strategy – Role of the Government”, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Project Director on “Institutions and Economic Development – Theory, History, and Contemporary Experiences”, World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER). Visiting Professor at various universities, and consultant to the UN and multilateral financial organizations. He holds a PhD from the Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
George Essegbey, Ghana
Chief Executive Officer of the Technology Development and Transfer Centre of Ghana’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR-TDTC)
Former Director of the Science and Technology Policy Research Institute (STEPRI) of CSIR. He has worked on Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) policy research for several years in the broad sectors of agriculture, industry, environment, and across key thematic areas including innovation studies, sustainable development, biodiversity conservation, and capacity building. He served various national and international organizations including UNESCO, UNCTAD, UNEP, FAO, IFPRI, and the World Bank. He is the Resource Person for Ghana’s STI Roadmap for the SDGs sponsored by UNESCO and is facilitating the revision of Ghana’s National STI Policy. He holds a PhD in development studies from the University of Cape Coast (UCC).
Ahmed, Galal, Egypt
Chair of the Board of Trustees, Middle East and North Africa Health Policy Forum
Former Minister of Finance of Egypt (2013-2014). He currently chairs the Board of Trustees of the MENA Health Policy Forum and is an active board member of several local, regional and international NGOs. Until December 2016, he was the managing director, for 10 years, of the Economic Research Forum. Before that, he worked for the World Bank for 18 years, conducting research and providing policy advice to governments of several countries around the world. He also served as Executive Director and Director of Research of the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies (ECES). He authored and co-authored more than a dozen books, including on the Middle East. He holds a PhD in economics from Boston University.
Arunabha Ghosh, India
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water
Public policy professional, adviser, author, columnist, and institution builder. He advises governments, industry, civil society and international organisations around the world. In 2022, the UN Secretary-General appointed him to the High-level Expert Group on the Credibility and Accountability of Net-Zero Announcements by Non-State Actors. He served on Government of India’s G20 Finance Track Advisory Group and advised the Sherpa Track for India’s G20 Presidency in 2022-23. He is the Co-convenor of the Our Common Air Commission and previously co-chaired the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Clean Air. He is a member of several international expert advisory groups. In 2020, the Government of India appointed him Co-Chair of the energy, environment and climate change track for India’s Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP2020). He serves on the Board of Directors of ClimateWorks Foundation and is a member of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group. He is the co-author/editor of four books and dozens of papers. He previously worked at Princeton, Oxford, UNDP (New York), and WTO (Geneva). He holds a PhD from Oxford and topped Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.
Trudi Hartzenberg, South Africa
Executive Director of the Trade Law Centre for Southern Africa
Executive Director the Trade Law Centre (tralac) which focuses on building policy and institutional capacity in Africa to enhance trade policy and governance to support Africa’s sustainable development. She is an economist working in the areas of trade and industrial policy, regional integration in Africa (including the African Continental Free Trade Area), competition policy, investment, trade in services, digital trade and intellectual property rights. She has a special interest in trade and gender, and has developed TRALAC’s Programme to support young women policy makers in African governments. She has worked with many African governments, regional and international organisations, including the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the African Union Commission and the Commonwealth Secretariat. She serves on several boards including the WTO Chairs Advisory Board and the Steering Committee of the African Trade Policy Centre at the UN Economic Commission for Africa.
Jibrin Ibrahim, Nigeria
Senior Fellow at the Centre for Democracy and Development
Senior Fellow at the Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja, Nigeria. Previous positions include Professor of Political Science at Babcock University, Ilishan; Director, Centre for Democracy and Development; Founding Country Director of Global Rights, an international human rights NGO, in Abuja, Nigeria; and Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of Federalism at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He has been a member of several national and regional civil society organizations and served in the leadership of several national and international advocacy and research networks of constitutional reform, public policy, electoral reform and civil society strengthening. He has lectured, published and consulted extensively on democratisation and governance in Africa. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the Institut d’Ă©tudes politiques de Bordeaux, France.
Anne-Laure Kiechel, France
Founder of Global Sovereign Advisory
Founder of Global Sovereign Advisory (GSA), an independent entity providing holistic advice to States and State-owned enterprises on public policy and financial matters. Through GSA, she currently advises more than thirty countries around the world on strategic matters including macro-fiscal framework/policy mix, economic strategy, public sector perimeter, financing strategy/debt restructurings as well as reform design/implementation/evaluation. She has more than 25 years of experience in debt capital markets and sovereign advisory at both government and state-owned enterprise level. She served as Advisor to the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (2016-2019). She graduated from HEC and Sankt-Gallen and holds a degree in Mathematics.
Carlos Lopes, Guinea-Bissau
Professor at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town
Professor at the Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town, Affiliate Professor at Sciences Po, Paris, Foundation Fellow of the International Science Council, ODI Senior Visiting Fellow, and Chatham House Associate Fellow. In 2017, and again in 2022, he was a Visiting Fellow of the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford. He belongs to the boards of about a dozen institutions. He has occupied several leadership positions across the United Nations system, including Policy Director for Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa. He is a member of the African Union Reform team and was designated in 2018 AU High Representative for Partnerships with Europe. He has served on several Global Commissions. He is an award winner widely published author, with over 20 edited or authored books and featured articles in main media vehicles.
Nyovani Janet Madise, Malawi
President of the Union for the African Population Studies
Nyovani is a social statistician and global health researcher. Previously she was director of Development Policy at the African Institute for Development Policy in Malawi; a professor of Demography and Social Statistics at the University of Southampton (UK); a senior research scientist at the African Population and Health Research Center in Kenya and a lecturer of Mathematics at the University of Malawi. She has authored over 115 peer-reviewed publications on the social determinants of sexual and reproductive health, maternal and child health, nutrition, and the environment. She is President of the Union for African Population Studies and co-chairs the UN Global Environment Outlook, Seventh Assessment. She is also a trustee of several not-for-profit organizations in the USA, UK and Malawi. Nyovani holds a PhD in social statistics from the University of Southampton.
Patricia Miranda, Bolivia
Global Advisory Director at the Latin American Network for Economic and Social Justice
As Global Advocacy Director at the Latin American Network for Economic and Social Justice (LATINDADD), she leads the contents and economic justice approach on debt (external, domestic, public, private), concessional financing, publicly-backed private finance, and financial architecture in general, cross-cutting gender and climate. She also leads main advocacy actions from Latin America and southern perspective in the IMF, World Bank, G7, G20, and Latin American governments, parliamentarians, and the finance for development process at the United Nations. She worked on debt policies and strategies in the public sector and NGOs at local, national, regional and global levels. She has a Masters with a major in Finance from the Instituto TecnolĂłgico de Monterrey (Mexico) and a specialisation in Public Financing Strategies from Debt Relief International (UK).
Keith Nurse, Trinidad and Tobago
President of the College of Science Technology and Applied Arts Trinidad and Tobago
President of the College of Science Technology and Applied Arts Trinidad and Tobago, and former Principal/CEO of the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College in Saint Lucia. He has worked in multiple roles at the University of the West Indies as the World Trade Organization Chair, Executive Director UWI Consulting Inc., Director of the Shridath Ramphal Centre for International Trade Law, Policy and Services, Senior Fellow at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies and Senior Lecturer Institute of International Relations. He has also worked as adjunct faculty at the Arthur Lok Jack Global School of Business in Trinidad and Tobago and at the Institute for International Development and Cooperation, University of Ottawa. He has worked as Senior Economist and Advisor on Structural Policies and Innovation to the OECD Development Centre. He currently serves as an expert member on the Framework for Cultural Statistics, UNESCO Institute of Statistics. He has also served as a member of Hemispheric Programme Advisory Committee of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture, a panel member for the International Union of the Scientific Study of Populations and as an academic board member of the ACP Intra-Regional Observatory on Migration, International Organization for Migration. He has worked as a researcher and consultant to governments and international and regional organizations in a wide range of areas.
José Antonio Ocampo Gaviria, Colombia
Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs and Member of the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University. He was UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. In his country, Colombia, he was Minister of Finance on two occasions, Minister of Agriculture, Director of the National Planning and Member of the Board of Directors of the central bank. He is also a member of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT). He has published extensively on macroeconomic theory and policy, international financial issues, economic and social development, international trade, and Colombian and Latin American economic history.
Izumi Ohno, Japan
Professor Emeritus, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies
Professor Emeritus at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) specializing in international development policy, Japanese development cooperation, industrial development cooperation, and business and development. She was GRIPS Professor during 2002-2024 and led the GRIPS Development Forum, which aims at pragmatic and policy-oriented research in these fields. From 2018-2020 she was Executive Director of the JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development and continues to serve as Senior Research Advisor to the institute. Prior to joining GRIPS, she worked at JICA, the World Bank and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. She has been engaged in a number of advisory committees in the areas of international development, such as chair of the Advisory Panel to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on New Financing for Development (March-July 2024), a member of the Advisory Panel to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the ODA Charter Review (March–July 2014), and chair of the Advisory Committee for the Japan Inclusive Business Support Center of the Ministry of Trade and Industry (2010-2014). She holds a Master in Public Affairs from Princeton University.
Ă…sa Persson, Sweden
Research Director and Deputy Director at Stockholm Environment Institute
Research Director and Deputy Director at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). She is a social scientist and expert on climate and sustainable development governance. She is also Adjunct Professor at the Department for Thematic Studies, Environmental Change, Linköping University. Since 2023, she is Chair of the Swedish Climate Policy Council. She oversees research quality and ethics policies and facilitates research innovation across SEI’s centres. She is a member of the SEI Executive Team and Global Management Committee. Her research focuses on the interaction between global and national policy and governance, including the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and climate policy. In 2020, she was appointed by the UN Secretary-General to the Independent Group of Scientists to draft the 2023 UN Global Sustainable Development Report. She is a member of several scientific committees and co-developed the concept of planetary boundaries. She holds a PhD in environmental policy from the London School of Economics & Political Science.
Cristelle Pratt, Fiji
Assistant Secretary-General, Organisation of African Caribbean and Pacific States
Assistant Secretary-General of the Environment and Climate Action Department at the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS). This organization aims to support member countries to carry out climate change adaptation and mitigation; protect biodiversity; promote the sustainable use and management of natural resources; strengthen ocean governance; and build resilience to disasters. Previously, she held various positions with the private sector and with the Fijian government. She worked as a consultant for organizations such as the Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific, the World Bank, UN Agencies and Australian Aid in the Asia and the Pacific regions, in areas such as climate change, disaster risk management and ocean governance. She was Director of the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC). In 2012 she became Deputy Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). She holds a Master of Marine Management from Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Annalisa Prizzon, Italy
Principal Research Fellow, ODI Global
Principal Research Fellow at ODI Global, with research interests in the architecture of development cooperation, development finance, and multilateral development banks. She regularly advises strategy departments in bilateral development agencies, multilateral development banks, and G20 processes. Her work has taken her to several Sub-Saharan African, Southeast Asian, Pacific, and Latin American countries. Prior to joining ODI Global, she worked as an economist and policy analyst in academic institutions and international organizations such as the OECD Development Centre and the World Bank Group. She is a Council member of the UK Development Study Association (DSA) and the lead editor of the journal Development Policy Review, and was previously a member of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Infrastructure. She holds a PhD in Economics and Public Finance from the University of Pavia, Italy, and was a visiting scholar at the University of Notre Dame, United States.
Taffere Tesfachew, Ethiopia
Senior Advisor on Economic Transformation to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change
Senior Advisor on Economic Transformation to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI). He is former Acting Managing Director of the UN Technology Bank for LDCs and the Director of the Division for Africa, Least Developed Countries and Special Programmes at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). In this capacity, he managed the work of UNCTAD on Africa and Least developed Countries and was responsible for the preparation of two major annual reports published by UNCTAD namely, the “Economic Development in Africa Report” and the “Least Developed Countries Report”. He has over 30 years of work experience in national and international development issues, particularly trade and development and the related areas of investment, industrial policy, technology, enterprise development and regional integration. He is a member of the AfCFTA’s Trade and Industrial Development Advisory Council and the Governing Council of the UN Technology Bank for LDCs. He is also Adjunct Professor at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town, South Africa. He holds a BA and MA degree in Economics from the University of Lancaster, UK, and an MPhil and a PhD in Economics from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK. He has authored and co-authored on a wide range of topics.
Kori Udovicki, Serbia
Head of the Center for Advanced Economic Studies
Head of the Center for Advanced Economic Studies (CEVES) in Belgrade, an independent think-and-do-tank devoted to advancing the economic development, democratic consolidation, and convergence of the Western Balkans with the European Union. Former positions include Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government of Serbia, Minister of Energy and Mines of Serbia, Director of UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Governor of the National Bank of Serbia, and Economist at the International Monetary Fund. She holds a PhD in Economics from Yale University.
Rolph van der Hoeven, Netherlands
Professor of Employment and Development Economics at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University
Professor of Employment and Development Economics (Emeritus) at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University, Netherlands since 2008. From 2009 to 2021 he was member of the Ditch Advisory Council on International Affairs and from 2005 to 2008, he was the Director for Policy Coherence at the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva. Earlier he worked for over 30 years in various countries for UNICEF and the ILO, where he was, inter alia, policy analyst for the ILO in Zambia and Ethiopia, Chief Economist with UNICEF in New York, manager of the inter-departmental project on Employment and Structural Adjustment at the ILO, and manager of the Technical Secretariat of the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization. He is widely published on employment, poverty, inequality, and economic reform issues and has a PhD in Economics from the Free University of Amsterdam.
Natalya Volchkova, Russian Federation
Senior Lecturer and Director, New Economic School, Russia and Vice-Rector, Russian Foreign Trade Academy
Senior Lecturer and Director at the Center for Economic and Financial Research, New Economic School, and Vice-Rector at the Russian Foreign Trade Academy, Moscow. Former positions include visiting scholar at the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Lecturer in International Economics at the International College of Economics and Finance, Moscow. In terms of civic and international affairs activities, she is involved as a Member in the Expert Council of Accounting Chamber of Russia, Council on Research Activities of the Central Bank of Russia, the Council for Global Problem Solving. She is the author of various publications and books on economic issues and has been awarded the VISBY Scholarship for Senior Researchers (Sweden), and the Fulbright Scholarship for Visiting Scholars (USA). She holds a PhD in Economics from the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute in Moscow.
Xufeng Zhu, China
Professor and Dean at the School of Public Policy and Management, Executive Director of the Institute for Sustainable Development Goals at Tsinghua University
Professor and Dean at the School of Public Policy and Management (SPPM) and Executive Director of the Institute for Sustainable Development Goals, Tsinghua University (TUSDG), Director of the Science & Technology Development and Governance Center, Tsinghua University (TUSTDG), and Director of the Think Tank Research Center of SPPM. He served as Professor at the Zhou Enlai School of Government, Nankai University. His research interests include public policy theories, science & technology policy, environment and climate policy, and public governance in transitional China. He serves as Vice President of the Chinese Public Administrative Society (CPAS), Vice President of the Asian Association of Public Administration (AAPA), General Secretary of the China Public Management Association (CPMA), Executive Council member and Co-Chair of the SDG working committee of the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA). He is the author of 7 books in English and in Chinese and has published over 40 articles in international prestigious journals. He has won many national academic awards including the China Distinguished Young Scholars of China. He holds a bachelor’s degree in environment engineering and a doctor’s degree in public policy and management from Tsinghua University.
Follow Us