Bloggers
Paul Mitchell is an internationally recognized expert in development communication with more than 30 years of experience in political risk analysis and management; change management; economic, utility, judicial, and public administrative reform; and also strategic communications, participatory processes, and public consultation. A Canadian national, he has worked in more than 50 countries and more than 150 development projects and programs assisting governments with their communications on difficult reform programs and high risk projects. Paul previously managed the Development Communication Division and he also used to manage the Bank wide regional communications network, as well as the communication work in the South Asia and Africa regions. He was also the head of communications with the United Nations World Food Programme, where he often served as the chief United Nations spokesperson during global relief operations, prior to joining the World Bank. international recognized expert in communication.
After 10 years of being part of every war famine and disaster in the world and then 12 years of work in the field, Paul strongly believes that communication has been consistently undervalued as a long term development tool and that many including communicators themselves do not see that the broader role and meaning of communication.
Johanna Martinsson coodinates this blog, and works for the World Bank's External Affairs Operational Communication department (EXTOC). She has several years of experience in knowledge management and capacity building, and specifically in developing and implementing global training programs on strategic communication via distance learning and e-learning. Johanna is also interested in how new communication technologies, such as social media, can contribute to good governance and accountability. She holds a master’s degree in Educational Technology from University of British Columbia.
Caroline’s background is in diplomacy and strategic communications. She has worked on projects in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan and spent many years working with the British Government, serving as Head of Press in Basra, Ministerial Speech Writer and Research and Head of Communications and Outreach for Pakistan. She co-founded Cambridge Advanced Strategic Training and after years of practice as a trainer, qualified to teach in 2011.
As an artist and film-maker, Caroline has held many exhibitions in Europe and Asia and is currently studying a Masters in Fine Arts in Cambridge, where she is exploring, amongst other research interests, media perceptions - see her website for more.
Caroline has had articles printed in national and international publications, she writes a regular column for Pakistani news agency Dawn, and her book, A Better Basra, about her time in Iraq was published in August 2011. She also runs Askance Publishing – an organization aimed at developing writers who may be missed by the mainstream.
Anne-Katrin Arnold is currently a consultant to the World Bank's External Affairs Operational Communication department (EXTOC). She is also a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, where her research focuses on issues of public opinion, the public sphere, and political decision making. Anne holds a M.Sc. in Communication Research from the Institute for Journalism and Communication Research in Hannover/Germany and a M.A. in Communication from the University of Pennsylvania, where she started her studies as a Fulbright Scholar.
Anne has tried her hand on all sides of political communication, working as a journalist and radio news anchor, speech writer, public relations officer, and researcher. She was a lecturer in social science methods and political communication at her Alma Mater in Hannover, and is currently a Teaching & Research Fellow at the Annenberg School. Her publications include articles on public opinion theory, on social capital, and on ethnic journalism in peer-reviewed journals, as well as a book on social capital and the media.
Being a true believer in the merits of an open and democratic public sphere, Anne is motivated by the conviction that if citizens had free access to information and the right to free speech, the world would be a more just place.
Tom Jacobson is Professor and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the School of Communications and Theater at Temple University. Research interests include national development, democratization, and public communication.
Tom received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington. Before arriving at Temple in 2005 he served as Chair of SUNY-Buffalo’s Department of Communication and was founding Director of its Informatics Research Center. He has been a Visiting Professor at Northwestern and Cornell Universities and is past President of the Participatory Communication Research Section of the International Association of Media and Communication Research. Recent publications include: T.L. Jacobson, “Harmonious Society, Civil Society and the Media: A Communicative Action Perspective,” China Media Research (Forthcoming, Vol. 4, 2008). Odugbemi, S & Jacobson T. L. (Eds.) (2008). Governance Reform Under Real World Conditions: Citizens, Stakeholders, and Voice. Washington DC: The World Bank. And T.L. Jacobson (2007). “A Case for Quantitative Assessment of Participatory Communication Programs,” Glocal Times, (Web magazine, Issue 9).
Lately, Tom is concerned that despite historical valorization of the idea of the voice of the people, more could be done by governments and media practitioners to actually listen. He is working on survey research protocols to determine the extent to which people feel that media represent citizen interests and that governments listen, in developed as well as developing societies.
Taeku Lee is Professor of Political Science and Law and Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Mobilizing Public Opinion (University of Chicago Press, 2002), which received the J. David Greenstone and the V.O. Key book awards; co-author of Why Americans Don't Join the Party (Princeton University Press, forthcoming); co-author of Asian American Political Participation (Russell Sage Foundation Press, under review). He has also co-edited Transforming Politics, Transforming America (University of Virginia Press, 2006) and is currently co-editing Accountability through Public Opinion (World Bank Press, forthcoming) and the Oxford Handbook of Racial and Ethnic Politics in the United States (Oxford University Press, under contract). Lee has served in administrative and leadership positions at UC-Berkeley and in advisory and consultative capacities for academic presses and journals, research projects, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, and private corporations. Prior to coming to Berkeley, he was Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Lee was born in South Korea, grew up in rural Malaysia, Manhattan, and suburban Detroit, and is a proud graduate of K-12 public schools, the University of Michigan (A.B.), Harvard University (M.P.P.), and the University of Chicago (Ph.D.).
Paolo Mefalopulos heads the Communication Program at UNICEF in India. He holds a doctorate degree in communication from the University of Texas at Austin. His professional career began in the private sector in Italy, where he worked for a national television network and for a training institution of a major private corporation. He has worked extensively in the field of information, education and communication for a number of international agencies such as UNESCO, FAO and the European Union. While working for FAO, Mefalopulos was part of a team that developed an innovative methodology known as PRCA – Participatory Rural Communication Appraisal, adopted by many projects around the world.
Paolo previously worked as a senior communication officer in the Development Communication Division of the World Bank. He has published a number of articles and books on communication. His most recent work is titled Development Communication Sourcebook: broadening the boundaries of communication. His main expertise is in participatory communication research and planning of development projects and programs.
Silvio Waisbord is Associate Professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. He is the Editor of the International Journal of Press/Politics. Previously, he was Associate Professor in the department of Journalism and Media Studies and Director of the Journalism Resources Institute at Rutgers University. More recently, he was Senior Program Officer at the Academy for Educational Development. He has also been a fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication, the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at Notre Dame University, and the Media Studies Center. His current work focuses on journalism,communication and globalization.
He is the author or co–editor of four books, including Watchdog Journalism in South America: News, Accountability, and Democracy (Columbia University Press). His work on news, politics,globalization, and development has appeared in several academic journals and edited books.He holds a M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California at San Diego.
Susan Moeller is the director of the International Center for Media and the Public Agenda (ICMPA) at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is an associate professor of media and international affairs in the Philip Merrill College of Journalism and an affiliated faculty member at the School of Public Policy. Moeller is also the lead faculty member for the Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change, a program in Austria that each summer brings 60 students and a dozen faculty together from all over the world to jointly create Global Media Literacy course materials.
Prior to coming to Maryland, Moeller was a senior fellow in the International Security Program at the Kennedy School. Moeller has also taught at Brandeis and Princeton, and was a Fulbright professor in Pakistan and Thailand.
Moeller has just published a new book Packaging Terrorism: Co-opting the News for Politics and Profit (Wiley-Blackwell), and is the author of several other books, including Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War and Death (Routledge).
John Garrison, joined the World Bank in 1996 as a Civil Society Specialist. He spent the first five years working in the Bank’s office in Brasilia, Brazil where he carried out applied research, organized outreach activities, and helped supervise Bank projects, all related to improving World Bank – civil society relations. In 2002 he joined the Bank’s Civil Society Team (CST) which coordinates the Bank’s civil society engagement work at the global level. Current activities include working to formulate Bank-wide strategy, providing advice to senior management, reaching out to international civil society networks, and disseminating information on the Bank.
Before joining the Bank, John spent most of his career working with international development and human rights issues. He has worked with a variety of non-governmental, church-based, and governmental organizations in Brazil, Latin America, and the United States. John holds a masters degree in Latin American Studies from Vanderbilt University and has published numerous articles and reports on grassroots development and civil society in NGO, government, and World Bank publications.
Photo by ExclamationImagery.com
Hannah Bowen conducts project management and analysis for InterMedia projects in Africa, working throughout the region. Hannah’s regional experience includes serving as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Ghana and working on Monitoring & Evaluation at the World Food Programme’s country office in Guinea-Bissau. She has also held short-term positions with the US Department of State, Oxfam America, and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT. She received an M.P.A. in International Development from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and holds a B.A. in Political Science from Yale University.
Tanya Gupta, formerly a blogger at Governance Matters, works in the Corporate Finance and Risk Management Vice Presidency VPU in the World Bank. Her last position was in the Public Sector Group of the World Bank’s Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Department, where she worked primarily on e-government with a focus on Mexico and the Caribbean. She has ten years of experience in the World Bank (Latin America and South Asia) and has spent three years in academia. She has an MBA from Bentley College.
Kalliope Kokolis is a consultant to the World Bank's External Affairs Operational Communication department (EXTOC). She has several years of experience in marketing and communications outreach. Kalliope holds her undergraduate degree in Media Studies and Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia, a master’s degree in Communication, Culture and Technology from Georgetown University and received a certificate in International Affairs and Multilateral Governance from The Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland. She is particularly interested in the use of social media for advocacy.
Sumir Lal is Manager for Operational Communications in the External Affairs Vice Presidency of the World Bank, heading a unit which coordinates campaigns, helps manage reputation risk issues, handles global civil society relations and provides a suite of communication services to Bank teams. This unit also plays a key role in implementation of the Bank’s Access to Information Policy.
Sumir played a pioneering role in introducing political analysis and risk management into project design and analytical work while based in the World Bank's New Delhi office from 2000 to 2006. Prior to joining the World Bank, Sumir was an award-winning journalist in India. He holds an advanced degree in public policy from Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and has published a number of papers on the political economy of reforms.
Michael Green is an independent writer and consultant, based in London.
Michael has worked in aid and development for nearly twenty years. He was a senior official in the British Government where he worked on international finance, managed UK aid to Russia and Ukraine, served three Secretaries of State as head of the communications department at the Department for International Development, and oversaw £100 million annual funding to nonprofits. It was through his role in government that he saw the rising influence of the philanthrocapitalists in the fight against poverty.
An economist by training, as a graduate of the University of Oxford, Michael taught economics at Warsaw University in the early 1990s under a Soros-funded programme. During his time in Poland, Michael was also a freelance journalist working for, among others, Polish Radio and the Economist.
She leads the Open Development work in External Affairs and has developed and led innovative campaigns. Recent examples include the first global Open Forum 2010, which opened up the Bank-Fund Annual Meetings to a broader public and Arab Voices and Views, a high-level forum on the Middle East and North Africa, which brought in fresh viewpoints to a critical discussion on accountability and jobs in the region.
Experienced in stakeholder engagement and relationship management, Maya has led the consultations in over 30 countries for the World Development Report 2007 and the global web consultations for the Governance and Anti-Corruption initiative. Collaborating with 16 leading research institutes in seven countries, she directed the Global Issues Seminar Series to enhance understanding of, and support for, the Bank’s role as a constructive player in global issues with this influential audience.
Ms. Brahmam has won the International Association of Business Communicators’ Silver Inkwell Award for writing and the SNAP Award of Excellence for campaigns. She has written and placed Op-eds, which have appeared in Le Monde and the South China Morning Post, among others.
An experienced public speaker, Maya has addressed major world forums, including the Council on Foreign Relations, the Fourth World Movement, and the Glocal Forum Youth Parliament.
Her areas of interest include youth and development, growth and development, gender and education, and knowledge for development. A native English speaker, she is fluent in French and is proficient in Spanish.
Watch interviews with experts on issues pertaining to governance reform under real-world conditions 
