Bloggers
Brian Levy currently is Adviser, Public Sector Governance in the World Bank. He is the author of Governance Reform: Bridging Monitoring and Action (World Bank, 2007), which builds on his 2006 work on governance monitoring featured in the 2006 Global Monitoring Report, Mutual Accountability: Aid, Trade and Governance. He worked in the World Bank's Africa Vice Presidency from 1991 to 2003 on the challenges of strengthening the institutional underpinnings of African development, for the last four years as sector manager of the Africa Public Sector Reform and Capacity Building Unit. Between 2007 and 2010 he was head of the secretariat responsible for implementation of the first phase of the World Bank Group's governance and anti-corruption strategy. He was a member of the core team which produced the World Bank’s 1997 World Development Report, The State in a Changing World. He has published numerous books and articles on the interactions between public institutions, the private sector and development in Africa, East Asia, and elsewhere, most recently editing (jointly with Sahr Kpundeh) the volume, Building State Capacity in Africa (World Bank Institute, 2004). He holds a PhD in Economics from Harvard University.
Graham Teskey is currently Senior Adviser, Public Sector Governance at the World Bank. He is currently leading the development of the second phase of the Bank’s Governance and Anti-Corruption strategy, as well as leading a research project on state-building in fragile and conflict-affected states. Prior to joining the Bank in 2009, Graham held a series of senior positions in DFID, including Head of Governance and Social Development, Head of Research and Head of Africa Policy Department. Graham joined DFID as an economist, and enjoyed postings to the Pacific, Kenya and Uganda. Back in London from 2002, Graham was the lead contributor to the UK’s 2006 White Paper on development, entitled “Making Governance work for the Poor”. Graham spent his early career as an operational economist in Fiji and then in newly independent Vanuatu. From 1985-1993 he taught at the University of Bradford in the UK. In 1989 he took two years leave of absence to work for the Norwegian Government in south-west Tanzania. Graham has undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in economics and planning.
Cyprian Fisiy is Director of the Social Development Department in the World Bank’s Sustainable Development Network. He joined the Bank in 1994 as a Social Scientist in the Africa Environment Sustainable Development Department and has since held various positions, including that of Lead Social Scientist, Africa Poverty Reduction and Social Development, and Sector Manager, East Asia and Pacific Sustainable Development Department. Mr. Fisiy is a Cameroonian national and has a PhD in Social Sciences (Socio-Legal Studies) from the University of Leiden.
Ariel Fiszbein is Chief Economist for the Human Development Network at the World Bank. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley. He joined the World Bank in 1991 were he started his career as Country Economist for Colombia. He has held several positions including that of coordinator of the poverty reduction team at the World Bank Institute, coordinator of the Bank’s program in human development for the southern cone countries in Latin America, Lead Economist in the Human Development Department for Latin America and the Caribbean and Adviser to the Bank’s Chief Economist and senior vice-President for Development Economics. In the latter position, he coordinated for several years the Bank’s Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) initiative.
He has published extensively on a range of issues of social policy. Most recently he co-authored Conditional Cash Transfers: Reducing Present and Future Poverty. He has taught at the Universidad de San Andres in Buenos Aires and was the secretary of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA) between 1998 and 2005.
Robert Hunja is a Lead Governance Specialist in the World Bank Institute(WBI) and is the Coordinator of the Institute’s Public Procurement Program. Mr. Hunja, a Kenyan national and lawyer by training, has been working in the procurement arena for over 17 years. He has worked at the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) during the development of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Procurement of Goods, Works and Services. He joined the World Bank in 1995 where he worked in the Legal Department before being appointed Manager of the Bank’s Procurement Policy group. In 2006, Mr. Hunja went on external service from the World Bank and joined the Government of Kenya where he helped establish the Public Procurement Oversight Authority and was its first Director General. He returned to the World Bank in September 2008 and was an Operations Advisor in the Africa Region before taking up his current position at the WBI.
Philip Keefer is a Lead Research Economist in the Development Research Group of the World Bank. The focus of his work, based on experience in countries ranging from Bangladesh, Benin, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic to Indonesia, México, Perú and Pakistan, is the determinants of political incentives to pursue economic development. His research, on issues such as the impact of insecure property rights on growth; the effects of political credibility on policy; and the sources of political credibility in democracies and autocracies, has appeared in journals ranging from the Quarterly Journal of Economics to the American Political Science Review.
Stuti Khemani is a Senior Economist in the Development Research Group and the Africa region’s Chief Economist’s office of the World Bank. Her area of research is the political economy of public policy choices, and institutional reforms for development. Her work is published in leading economics and political science journals, including the American Economic Journal, Journal of Development Economics and American Political Science Review. She has studied the impact of electoral politics on fiscal policy and intergovernmental fiscal relations; and analyzed political constraints to efficient allocation of public resources for health and education services. She is currently examining the role of mass media and local elections in addressing political incentives for development policies. Her research and advisory work spans a diverse range of countries, including Benin, Bolivia, China, India, the Philippines, and Nigeria. She holds a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Nick Manning is Advisor on Public Sector and Governance at the World Bank, and one of the leaders of the World Bank's Public Sector Performance Global Expert Team. He was previously the Manager for Public Sector and Governance in the World Bank for the Latin American and Caribbean Region, and prior to that he was the Head of the Public Sector Management and Performance Division at the OECD, Lead Public Sector Management Specialist for South Asia in the World Bank, Adviser on public management to the Commonwealth Secretariat and Senior Technical Adviser to UNDP in Lebanon. He began his public sector career in local government in the U.K. and, before moving to international advisory work, was Head of Strategic Planning for an inner London Borough.
Nick is Adviser to the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management, member of the editorial board of the Public Management Review and Visiting Professor at the Herbert Simon Institute for Public Policy, Administration and Management. He has an extensive range of governance publications covering developing and developed countries, linking public administration with public budgeting and policy management.
Sina Odugbemi, is program head of the Communication for Governance & Accountability Program (CommGAP). He has over 20 years of experience in journalism, law, and development communication. Before he joined the World Bank in 2006, he spent seven years in the UK’s development ministry, DFID. His last position was Program Manager and Adviser, Information and Communication for Development. Sina holds a Bachelor’s degree in English (1980) and in Law (1986) from the University of Ibadan, a Master’s degree in Legal and Political Philosophy (1999) from the University College London, and a PhD in Laws (2009) at the same university on the subject Public Opinion and Direct Accountability between Elections: A Study of the Constitutional Theories of Jeremy Bentham and A.V. Dicey
Dena Ringold is a Senior Economist in the Human Development Network, Office of the Chief Economist. Her research interests include governance, service delivery, and inclusion of minorities. Prior to joining the HD Network she worked in the Europe and Central Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean Regions.
Onno Ruhl is the World Bank Country Director for Nigeria. He was also Country Manager for the DRC. Prior to joining the World Bank he worked for the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was an Alternate Executive Director on the Board of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). Mr Ruhl holds a Msc in Economics from the University of Amsterdam.
Alaka Holla is an Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist of the Human Development Network. Her area of research is focused on measuring the quality of service delivery, discrimination in access, and the relationships among prices, access, and quality in health and education markets. She is currently contributing to analytical work in India, Cambodia, and Serbia, She holds a PhD in Economics from Brown University.
Vivek Maru is a senior counsel in the Justice Reform Group of the World Bank. His work focuses on justice reform and governance, primarily in West Africa and South Asia. Before joining the World Bank, Vivek co-founded and co-directed for four years Timap for Justice, a grassroots justice program in Sierra Leone. Vivek has previously worked at Human Rights Watch and clerked for Hon. Marsha Berzon on the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. His recent publications include Between Law and Society: Paralegals and the Provision of Justice Services in Sierra Leone and Worldwide in the Yale Journal of International Law and Allies Unknown: Legal Empowerment and Social Accountability in Harvard Journal of Health and Human Rights. Maru graduated from Harvard College, magna cum laude, and Yale Law School.
