IMF Conference

Introduction by Min Zhu, IMF Deputy Managing Director
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MIN ZHU assumed the position of Deputy Managing Director on July 26, 2011. Previously he served as Special Advisor to the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund from May 3, 2010 to July 25, 2011. Mr. Zhu, a native of China, was a Deputy Governor of the People’s Bank of China. He was responsible for international affairs, policy research, and credit information. Prior to his service at China’s central bank, he held various positions at the Bank of China where he served as Group Executive Vice president, responsible for finance and treasury, risk management, internal control, legal and compliance, and strategy and research. Mr. Zhu also worked at the World Bank and taught economics at both Johns Hopkins University and Fudan University. Mr. Zhu received a Ph.D and an M.A. in economics from Johns Hopkins University, an M.P.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and a B.A. in economics from Fudan University.

Opening Remarks

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Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, IMF

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CHRISTINE LAGARDE completed high school in Le Havre and attended Holton Arms School in Bethesda (Maryland, USA). She then graduated from law school at University Paris X, and obtained a Master’s degree from the Political Science Institute in Aix en Provence. After being admitted as a lawyer to the Paris Bar, Christine Lagarde joined the international law firm of Baker & McKenzie as an associate, specializing in Labor, Anti-trust, and Mergers & Acquisitions. A member of the Executive Committee of the Firm in 1995, Christine Lagarde became the Chairman of the Global Executive Committee of Baker & McKenzie in 1999, and subsequently Chairman of the Global Strategic Committee in 2004. Christine Lagarde joined the French government in June 2005 as Minister for Foreign Trade. After a brief stint as Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, in June 2007 she became the first woman to hold the post of Finance and Economy Minister of a G-7 country. From July to December 2008, she also chaired the ECOFIN Council, which brings together Economics and Finance Ministers of the European Union. As a member of the G-20, Christine Lagarde was involved in the Group's management of the financial crisis, helping to foster international policies related to financial supervision and regulation and to strengthen global economic governance. As Chairman of the G-20 when France took over its presidency for the year 2011, she launched a wide-ranging work agenda on the reform of the international monetary system. In 2009, Christine Lagarde was ranked the 17th most influential woman in the world by Forbes magazine, the 5th best European executive woman by The Wall Street Journal Europe, and became one of Time magazine’s top-100 world leaders. The Financial Times named her European Finance Minister of 2009.Christine Lagarde was named Chevalier in the Légion d'honneur in July 2000. A former member of the French national team for synchronized swimming, Christine Lagarde is the mother of two sons.

Josette Sheeran, United Nations World Food Programme

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Josette Sheeran is the Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Rome. As the leader of WFP since 2007, she oversees the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. WFP feeds more than 100 million people in more than 70 countries. She has put in place new emergency protocols that have helped the institution improve its ability to save lives and livelihoods in disasters and emergencies, most recently in Haiti and Pakistan and in 2011 scaling up response to the historic drought in the Horn of Africa. Sheeran is also currently serving as chair of the High Level Committee on Management, which is leading coordination and coherence in administrative and management areas across the entire UN system. In addition to her extensive experience in the private sector, including the think tank and media realms, she previously served as under secretary for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

She has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations for 15 years and has served on its Washington advisory board. She has received numerous awards, including the “Order of Rio Branco Medal”, the highest honor within the Brazilian diplomatic service, the Press Award for Journalistic Achievement by the National Order of Women Legislators and most recently made the Forbes Most Powerful Women list, ranking 30 out of 100. Sheeran received her B.A. from the University of Colorado.

Session I. Commodity Price Volatility: Challenges

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Chair: Shanta Devarajan, World Bank

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SHANTAYANAN DEVARAJAN is the Chief Economist of the World Bank’s Africa Region. Since joining the World Bank in 1991, he has been a Principal Economist and Research Manager for Public Economics in the Development Research Group, the Chief Economist of the Human Development Network, and of the South Asia Region. He was the director of the World Development Report 2004: Making Services Work for Poor People. Before 1991, he was on the faculty at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. The author and co-author of over 100 publications, Mr. Devarajan’s research covers public economics, trade policy, natural resources, and the environment, and general equilibrium modeling of developing countries. Born in Sri Lanka, Mr. Devarajan received his B.A. in mathematics from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

“The Natural Resource Curse”
Speaker: Jeffrey Frankel, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

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JEFFREY FRANKEL is James W. Harpel Professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School. He directs the program in International Finance and Macroeconomics at the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he is also on the Business Cycle Dating Committee, which officially declares U.S. recessions. Professor Frankel served at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers twice: on the staff (1983-84) and as a Member (under President Clinton, 1996-99). His responsibilities as Member included macroeconomics, international economics, and the environment. Before moving east, he had been Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, having joined the faculty in 1979. He is on advisory panels for the Federal Reserve Banks of New York and Boston, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Peterson Institute for International Economics. In the past he has visited the IIE, the International Monetary Fund and the Federal Reserve Board. His research interests include currencies, crises, commodities, trade, international finance, monetary and fiscal policy, the natural resource curse, and global environmental issues. His most cited article is “Does Trade Cause Growth?” (AER, 1999). He writes a blog and a textbook. He was born in San Francisco, graduated from Swarthmore College, and received his Economics PhD from MIT.

“Commodity Price Volatility: Impact and Policy Challenges for LICs”
Speaker: Hugh Bredenkamp, IMF

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HUGH BREDENKAMP is Deputy Director in the IMF’s Strategy, Policy and Review Department, and head of the Low-Income Country Strategy Unit. Since joining the IMF in 1988, from the U.K. Treasury, he has worked on countries in Western Europe, the former Soviet Union, Asia, and Africa, where he was mission chief for Ghana. On the policy side, he was closely involved in the development of the HIPC Initiative, the creation of the PRGF, and, the recent overhaul of the Fund’s facilities for low-income countries. From 2004-2007, he served as the IMF’s resident representative in Turkey.

“The Political Economy of Resource Discoveries”
Speaker: Michael Ross, Department of Political Science, UCLA

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MICHAEL L. ROSS is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1996, and previously was an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, and a Research Fellow at the World Bank. Dr. Ross has published widely on the politics of resource-rich countries; his work has appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and the New York Times, and has been featured in the Washington Post, Newsweek, and many other publications. His most recent book is The Oil Curse: how petroleum wealth shapes the development of nations (Princeton University Press, 2012). He has served on advisory boards for the Revenue Watch Institute and the World Bank, and is a member of the Technical Group for the Natural Resource Charter. In 2009, his article “Oil, Islam, and Women” received the Heinz Eulau Award from the American Political Science Association for the best article published in the American Political Science Review.

Policy Makers Perspective by Luis Arce Catacora, Minister of Economy and Public Finance, Bolivia

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LUIS ARCE CATACORA is Minister of Economy and Finance Bolivia since February 2006 and from that position has led the economic policy of President Evo Morales. He has played a central role in the nationalization of hydrocarbons, mining and telecommunication companies as well as in the creation of the Bank of the South, together with the Ministers of Finance of Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and Paraguay. Previously he held the position of Chief of International Operations in the Central Bolivia Bank (BCB and other operating and executive positions from 1987 until January 2006. In the academic area he has a vast experience as a professor in public and private universities of Bolivia. He obtained his Bachelor's degree in economics from University Mayor de San Andrés (Bolivia) and received Master's degree in Economics from the University of Warwick, England, where he studied between 1996-1997. He has published in journals of economics such as "Economic Analysis" of the BCB and other academic institutions. As Minister, Mr. Arce has participated in several discussions with world leaders like the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, professors from universities of United States and Finance Ministers of the neighboring countries.

Sid’Ahmed Ould Raiss, Governor, Central Bank of Mauritania

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SID'AHMED OULD RAISS is Governor of the Central Bank of Mauritania, a position he has held since April 2009. Mr. Ould Raiss has earned graduate degrees in public affairs and law from the Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA) in Paris, University of Tunis 1 and University of Nouakchott. He previously held various senior positions in the Government of Mauritania: Finance Minister (2008-2009), Minister of Commerce and Industry (2007), and first auditor at the Mauritania's Court of Audits (1994-2002). Mr. Ould Raiss also made various contributions to academia as an assistant professor at the University of Nouakchott (1991-1995).

General Discussion

Coffee Break

Session II. macro-policy options for LICs

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Chair: Leslie Lipschitz, IMF

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LESLIE LIPSCHITZ became Director of the IMF Institute in December 2003. He joined the IMF in 1974, and during his 30 years of service at the Fund has held increasingly senior positions in four area departments (Western Hemisphere, Asian and Pacific, European, and African) and the Policy Development and Review Department (PDR). He received his PhD in economics from the University of London.Lipschitz has worked extensively in Asia, Africa, and Europe and has led numerous IMF missions. He has participated in the Fund's work on surveillance over the major industrial countries, led program negotiations for both emerging and developing countries, and, most recently, been closely involved in the Fund's policy development work in surveillance and conditionality. Lipschitz has been a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution and has taught at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. His publications are primarily in open economy macroeconomics and exchange rate policy.

“Monetary Policy Responses to Food and Fuel Price Volatility”
Speaker: Eswar Prasad, Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University

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ESWAR S. PRASAD is the Tolani Senior Professor of Trade Policy at Cornell University. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he holds the New Century Chair in International Economics, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He was previously chief of the Financial Studies Division at the IMF and before that was the head of the IMF’s China Division. He is a member of an Advisory Committee to India’s Finance Minister and a Lead Academic for the International Growth Center’s India Growth Research Program. He has testified before various U.S. Congressional Committees at hearings on China. He is the creator of the Brookings-Financial Times global economy index (Tracking Indicators for the Global Economy; www.ft.com/tiger). He is also a Research Fellow at IZA (Institute for the Study of Labor, Bonn) and a Research Associate of the National Asia Research Program

“Fiscal Policy for Commodity Exporting Countries: Experience from Chile”
Speaker:  Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel, Institute of Economics, Catholic University of  Chile

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KLAUS SCHMIDT-HEBBEL is an international consultant and advisor. He is Full Professor of Economics at the Catholic University of Chile since May 2009. He is Chairman of the Financial Advisory Board of Chile’s Sovereign Wealth Funds to the Minister of Finance. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of Chile’s Fiscal Rule to the Minister of Finance, and the Board of Directors of Pension Fund AFP Habitat. Mr. Schmidt-Hebbel held the position of Chief Economist of the OECD and Director of the OECD Economics Department in Paris in 2008-2009. He spent the previous 12 years as Chief of Economic Research at the Central Bank of Chile. Before that he was Principal Economist in the Research Department of the World Bank in Washington. He has worked closely as advisor and consultant with international organisations, global corporations, 17 governments, 25 central banks, and many universities, conducting research and providing key financial and policy advice on a wide array of topics, ranging from financial markets, macroeconomics and growth policies, to pension systems and capital market reform, institutional organization and policy design. He has been a keynote speaker on financial, macroeconomic, and development issues in a many private-sector meetings and international conferences. Dr. Schmidt-Hebbel was elected “2008 Economist of the Year” by his peers in Chile. He was President of the Chilean Economic Association in 2007-2008. He has been widely published in the fields of international finance, macroeconomics, monetary policy, economic growth, and development. He speaks fluent Spanish, English, German, and Portuguese, as well as basic French. Mr. Schmidt-Hebbel holds a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a BA and a MA in Economics from the Catholic University of Chile.

“Saving and Investment Decisions in Natural Resource Rich LICs”
Speaker: Paul Collier, Centre for the Study of African Economies, Oxford University

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PAUL COLLIER is Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University. He took a five year Public Service leave, 1998-2003, during which he was Director of the Research Development Department of the World Bank. He is also a Distinguished Invited Professor at Sciences Po, Paris. His research covers fragile states, democratization, and the management of natural-resources in low-income societies. Collier is the author of The Bottom Billion, which in 2008 won the Lionel Gelber, Arthur Ross and Corine Prizes and in May 2009 was the joint winner of the Estoril Global Issues Distinguished Book Prize. His second book, Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places was published in March 2009; and his latest book, The Plundered Planet: How to Reconcile Prosperity with Nature, in May 2010. Paul Collier is currently advisor to the Strategy and Policy Department of the International Monetary Fund, and advisor to the Africa Region of the World Bank. In 2008, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) 'for services to scholarship and development'. In 2011 he was elected to the Council of the Royal Economic Society.

Policy Makers Perspective by Kwabena Duffour, Minister of Finance, and Economic Planning, Ghana

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KWABENA DUFFOUR, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, has been Minister of Finance since February 2009. He has had a career in commercial banking, and was Governor of the Bank of Ghana in 1997 2001 under the former National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration. He was an IMF intern in 1979.

Matata Ponyo Mapon, Minister of Finance, Democratic Republic of Congo

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MATATA PONYO MAPON has been Minister of Finance since February 2010. He led his country to completion point, thus facilitating the cancellation of nearly US$ 9 billion in external debt. From 2003 to 2010, he was Director-General of the BCECO (executing agency for projects financed by donors and lenders–World Bank, ADB). From 2000 to 2003, he was a macroeconomics advisor to the Minister of Finance. Before then, from 1988 to 2000, he was an economist at the central bank. Matata holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Monetary Economics from the University of Kinshasa, where he worked as an Assistant Lecturer for several years.

General Discussion

Luncheon

Keynote Address “Globalization and Income Distribution”
Joseph Stiglitz, Winner of 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics

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JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ is University Professor at Columbia University, the winner of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, and a lead author of the 1995 IPCC report, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He was chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisors under President Clinton and chief economist and senior vice president of the World Bank for 1997-2000. Stiglitz received the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded biennially to the American economist under 40 who has made the most significant contribution to the subject. He was a Fulbright Scholar at Cambridge University, held the Drummond Professorship at All Souls College Oxford, and has also taught at M.I.T, Yale, Stanford, and Princeton. Mr. Stiglitz helped create a new branch of economics, "The Economics of Information," exploring the consequences of information asymmetries and pioneering such pivotal concepts as adverse selection and moral hazard, which have now become standard tools not only of theorists, but also of policy analysts. His work has helped explain the circumstances in which markets do not work well, and how selective government intervention can improve their performance. He is the author most recently of Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the Global Economy.

Session III.  Structural Policies in LICs

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Chair: Antoinette Sayeh, IMF

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ANTOINETTE SAYEH assumed her current position as Director of the African Department of the International Monetary Fund in July 2008. As Minister of Finance in post-conflict Liberia (January 2006 through June 2008) she led the country through the clearance of its long-standing multilateral debt arrears, the HIPC Decision Point, the Paris Club, and its first Poverty Reduction Strategy, significantly strengthening its public finances and championing public financial management reform. Before joining President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s Cabinet, Ms. Sayeh worked for the World Bank for seventeen years, including as Country Director for Benin, Niger, and Togo, Country Economist on Pakistan, and Afghanistan, as well as an Advisor in the Bank’s Operations Policy Vice Presidency and as Assistant to its principal Managing Director. Before joining the Bank, Ms. Sayeh worked in economic advisory positions in Liberia’s Ministries of Finance and Planning. Ms. Sayeh graduated with a bachelor's degree with honors in economics from Swarthmore College and a PhD in International Economic Relations from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

“Risk Finance and Development”
Speaker: Abhijit Banerjee,  Department of Economics, MIT

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ABHIJIT VINAYAK BANERJEE was educated at the University of Calcutta, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D in 1988. He is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2003 he founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), along with Esther Duflo and Sendhil Mullainathan and remains one of the directors of the lab. In 2009 J-PAL won the BBVA Foundation "Frontier of Knowledge" award in the development cooperation category. Banerjee is a past president of the Bureau for the Research in the Economic Analysis of Development, a Research Associate of the NBER, a CEPR research fellow, International Research Fellow of the Kiel Institute, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society and has been a Guggenheim Fellow and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow. J-PAL received the inaugural BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award for world-class research, and Professor Banerjee received the Infosys Prize 2009 in Social Sciences and Economics. His areas of research are development economics and economic theory. He is the author of three books including Poor Economics (www.pooreconomics.com), as well as a large number of articles, and is the editor of a fourth book. He finished his first documentary film, "The Name of the Disease" in 2006.

“Commodity price volatility and growth inclusiveness in LICs”
Speaker: Francois Bourguignon, Paris School of Economics

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FRANCOIS BOURGUIGNON is the Director of the Paris School of Economics. Back in France in 2007, following four years as the Chief Economist and first Vice President of the World Bank in Washington, he has also returned to his former position of Professor of Economics at the EHESS (advanced school in Social Sciences). Trained as a statistician, he obtained a Ph D. in Economics at the University of Western Ontario, followed by a State Doctorate at the University of Orleans in France. His work is both theoretical and empirical and principally aims at the distribution and the redistribution of revenue in developing and developed countries. He is the author of a great number of books and articles in specialized national and international economic journals. He has taught throughout Universities worldwide. He has received, during the course of his career, a number of scientific distinctions/decorations/has been decorated. Through his experience, he is often sought for counsel to Governments and international organisations throughout the world. Recent Publications include: "The Impact of Economic Policies on Poverty and Income Distribution: Evaluation Techniques and Tools", (with L. Pereira), Oxford University Press, 2003. "The Microeconomics of Income Distribution Dynamics in East Asia and Latin America" (with F. Ferreira & N. Lustig), Oxford University Press, 2005. "The Impact of Macroeconomic Policies on Poverty and Income Distribution" (with M. Bussolo & L. Pereira), Palgrave, 2008. "Itinéraires de l'économie mondiale", entretiens with F. Boutin-Dufresne, Nota Bene, 2010.”

“Food price inflation, poverty, and inclusive growth in Asia”
Speaker: Changyong Rhee, Asian Development Bank

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CHANGYONG RHEE is the Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank. Mr. Rhee, a national of the Republic of Korea, has over 20 years of professional experience in the government and academia. He was the Secretary General of the Presidential Committee for the G-20 Summit where he played a key role in shaping and advancing the agenda for the 2010 G-20 Seoul Summit. Prior to this, Mr. Rhee was Vice Chairman of the Financial Services Commission of the Republic of Korea. During his tenure, he was instrumental in developing strategic policy responses to the 2008 global economic crisis, including initiation of the Corporate Restructuring Fund, the Bank Recapitalization Fund, and the Financial Stabilization Fund. In the private sector, he has advised Shinhan Bank and Woori Investment and Securities Company, among others. He has also been the director of the financial market think tank, the Korea Fixed Income Research Institute. From 1994 to 2008, Mr. Rhee was a Professor of Economics at Seoul National University where he undertook research in macroeconomics, financial economics, and the Korean economy. Mr. Rhee obtained his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University, and his Bachelor degree in Economics from Seoul National University.

Policy Makers Perspective by Charles Castel, Bank of Republic of Haiti

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CHARLES CASTEL was appointed Governor of the Bank of the Republic of Haiti (BRH) in November 2007. He previously worked at a Haitian Commercial Bank, was head of the Legal and Banking Supervision departments of the BRH, and served as General Manager of the BRH. Mr. Castel earned a Master of Laws, Financial and Banking Law, from Columbia University, New York, in 2000. He also earned a Master of Arts in Economics from the State University of New York in 1991.

Atiur Rahman, Governor, Bangladesh Bank

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ATIUR RAHMAN, Governor, Bangladesh Bank since May, 2009 is a development economist with extensive research and academic background and a well noted activism towards inclusive economic and social growth in a pro-poor, environment and gender sensitive development paradigm. He joined Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies in 1977 after obtaining Masters Degree in economics from Dhaka University, later securing M.Sc. and Ph.D. Degrees from University of London as well. He held several teaching assignments at Universities in Bangladesh, Canada, and Singapore; chaired a think tank (Unnayan Samannay) at Dhaka, and served as member and chairman respectively of board of directors of two large state owned banks in Bangladesh. Just before joining Bangladesh Bank as Governor, he was Professor at the Department of Development Studies in Dhaka University. He has traveled extensively on numerous assignments as UN /WB mission members, and has received several awards for economic and literary contributions. He has authored 45 publications, his Ph.D. thesis ‘Peasants and Classes’ is an acclaimed reference book in development research. As Governor, Bangladesh Bank he has imparted major thrust on wider, deeper financial inclusion towards promoting broad-based inclusive growth.

General Discussion

Coffee Break

Keynote Address “Climate Change, Commodity Price Volatility and Consequences for LICs”
Jeffrey Sachs, Earth Institute, Columbia University

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JEFFREY SACHS is the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is also Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. From 2002 to 2006, he was Director of the UN Millennium Project and Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals, the internationally agreed goals to reduce extreme poverty, disease, and hunger by the year 2015. Sachs is also President and Co-Founder of Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit organization aimed at ending extreme global poverty. He is widely considered to be the leading international economic advisor of his generation. For more than 20 years Professor Sachs has been in the forefront of the challenges of economic development, poverty alleviation, and enlightened globalization, promoting policies to help all parts of the world to benefit from expanding economic opportunities and wellbeing. He is author of hundreds of scholarly articles and many books, including the New York Times bestsellers Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (Penguin, 2008) and The End of Poverty (Penguin, 2000).

Session IV.  Panel Discussion: How To Achieve Inclusive Growth In LICs?

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Chair: Yvonne Ndege, Journalist, Al Jazeera

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YVONNE NDEGE is West Africa Correspondent & Bureau Chief for Al Jazeera Television, based in Abuja, Nigeria. Prior to this appointment, Yvonne was the network's Correspondent in East Africa Correspondent based in Nairobi and prior to that appointment, spent close to a decade working as a Producer/Reporter for the BBC in the United Kingdom. Yvonne's career in journalism began at BBC after she graduated from University of London's Goldsmiths College and the London School of Economics in sciences. Yvonne has worked on and covered extensively, some of the biggest news stories and current affairs of our times from wars and conflicts, natural disasters and scientific breathroughs, elections and revolutions spanning over 35 countries in Africa, Europe and the United States, most notably in Africa, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Kenya, South Africa, Chad, Rwanda, and Cote d'Ivoire. In 2010, she won the UN Award for Journalism for her coverage of the Democratic Republic of Congo. She joins us today from Niger Republic where's she been covering the spillover from the ongoing conflict in Libya.

Panelists:

Min Zhu, Deputy Managing Director, IMF

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MIN ZHU assumed the position of Deputy Managing Director on July 26, 2011. Previously he served as Special Advisor to the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund from May 3, 2010 to July 25, 2011. Mr. Zhu, a native of China, was a Deputy Governor of the People’s Bank of China. He was responsible for international affairs, policy research, and credit information. Prior to his service at China’s central bank, he held various positions at the Bank of China where he served as Group Executive Vice president, responsible for finance and treasury, risk management, internal control, legal and compliance, and strategy and research. Mr. Zhu also worked at the World Bank and taught economics at both Johns Hopkins University and Fudan University. Mr. Zhu received a Ph.D and an M.A. in economics from Johns Hopkins University, an M.P.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and a B.A. in economics from Fudan University.

Nancy Birdsall, President, Center for Global Development

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NANCY BIRDSALL is the Center for Global Development's founding president. From 1993 to 1998, she was executive vice president of the Inter-American Development Bank, the largest of the regional development banks, where she oversaw a $30 billion public and private loan portfolio. Before that she worked 14 years in research, policy, and management positions at the World Bank, including as director of the Policy Research Department. She is the author, co-author, or editor of more than a dozen books and over 100 articles in scholarly journals and monographs. Shorter pieces of her writing have appeared in dozens of U.S. and Latin American newspapers and periodicals. Nancy received her Ph.D. from Yale University and her M.A. from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Prior to launching the Center, she served for three years as Senior Associate and Director of the Economic Reform Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace where her work focused on globalization, inequality and the reform of the international financial institutions.

Mustapha Nabli, Governor, Central Bank of Tunisia

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MUSTAFA NABLI assumed office as Governor of the Central Bank of Tunisia (CBT) on January 17, 2011. Prior to taking up his position at the head of the CBT, he has been the Regional Chief Economist and Director of the Social and Economic Development Group within the Middle East and North Africa Region of the World Bank since 1999. Earlier, Mr. Nabli was an international consultant, before which he served as Minister of Economic Development and Minister of Planning and Regional Development in the Government of Tunisia from 1990 to 1995 and as an economics expert for the EU and the League of Arab nations. Between 1988 and 1990, Mr. Nabli held the position of Chairman of the Tunis Stock Exchange. Prior to 1988, he was Professor of economics, Faculté de Droit et des Sciences Politiques et Economiques de Tunis and served as visiting professor at various universities in Canada, USA, Belgium and France. Mr. Nabli holds a Ph.D. and a Masters degree in Economics from the University of California at Los Angeles. Mr. Mustapha Kamel Nabli was born in Téboulba, Tunisia, on February 10, 1948.

Ray Offenheiser, President, Oxfam America

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RAY OFFENHEISER is President of Oxfam America, a non-profit international development and relief agency and the U.S. affiliate of Oxfam International. Oxfam works to end global poverty through saving lives, strengthening communities and campaigning for change. Since Ray joined Boston-based Oxfam America in 1995, the organization has grown more than fourfold in size and has positioned itself as an expert on international development and global trade. Ray has worked his entire career in the nonprofit sector: before joining Oxfam America, he served for five years as the Ford Foundation Representative in Bangladesh and, prior to that, in the Andean and Southern Cone regions of South America. He has also directed programs for the Inter-American Foundation in both Brazil and Colombia and worked for Save the Children Federation in Mexico. Ray holds a master’s degree in development sociology from Cornell University and earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame. He speaks fluent Spanish and Portuguese.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Finance Minister, Nigeria

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NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA is the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Finance Minister of Nigeria since August 2011. She was previously Managing Director at the World Bank (October 2007–July 2011). She served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nigeria (June–August 2006) and Minister of Finance and Economy (July 2003–June 2006) and played a pivotal role in stabilizing and revitalizing the economic growth of Nigeria and the historical debt cancellation negotiations. She was a development economist for 21 years at the World Bank before joining the Nigerian Government and held various senior positions, including Vice President and Corporate Secretary.

George Akerlof, Winner of 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics

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GEORGE AKERLOF is Senior Resident Scholar at the IMF since 2010 and Koshland Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. A 2001 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Science (shared with Michael Spence and Joseph Stiglitz), he was honored for his theory of asymmetric information and its effect on economic behavior. He researches a range of topics, including crime, discrimination, family problems, financial markets, German unification, macroeconomics, monetary policy, poverty and unemployment. He is also well known for his efficiency wage hypothesis, which suggests that wages are determined by the efficiency goals of employers in addition to supply and demand forces.

General Discussion

Cocktail Reception

Keynote Remarks

Nemat Shafik, Deputy Managing Director, IMF

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NEMAT SHAFIK assumed the position of Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund on April 11, 2011. A national of Egypt, the U.K., and the U.S. , Ms. Shafik is a global citizen with a global reputation in fields ranging from emerging markets, international development, the Middle East and Africa, to the financial sector. She brings to the Fund a wealth of experience in policy-making, management, and academia. She was the youngest-ever Vice President at the World Bank, where she was responsible for a private sector and infrastructure portfolio of investments, and was part of the senior management team of the International Finance Corporation. She was the Permanent Secretary of the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID). Prior to serving at the World Bank and DFID, she worked in Cairo as a consultant on development issues. After graduating from high school in Alexandria, Egypt, and attending the American University in Cairo, Ms. Shafik earned degrees from the University of Massachusetts—Amherst, and the London School of Economics, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Oxford University. She was a member of the Middle East Advisory Group to the Fund. She has published widely, especially on the Middle East and North Africa, and has taught at the Wharton School of Business and Georgetown University. She speaks Arabic, English, and French.