#Infra4Dev Conference: Infrastructure, Recovery & Growth: Building Out From the Pandemic

Riccardo Puliti, an Italian national, is the Vice President for Infrastructure at the World Bank as of August 16, 2021. In this position he leads the Bank's global efforts to build effective infrastructure in developing and emerging markets and supports the World Bank Group’s strategic business priorities such as the climate change action plan. He oversees the Bank's critical work across energy and transport sectors, digital development, and efforts to provide access to renewable energy and low-carbon transportation and quality infrastructure services to communities through public-private partnerships.  Infrastructure represents around USD 75 billion of the Bank’s portfolio.

Carmen M. Reinhart is the Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank Group. Assuming this role on June 15, 2020, Reinhart provides thought leadership for the institution at an unprecedented time of crisis. She also manages the Bank’s Development Economics Department. Reinhart’s areas of expertise are in international finance, and macroeconomics. Her work has helped to inform the understanding of financial crises in both advanced economies and emerging markets. She has published extensively on capital flows, exchange rate policy, banking and sovereign debt crises, and contagion.

Nemat (Minouche) Shafik is a leading economist, whose career has straddled public policy and academia. She was appointed Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science in September 2017. She did her BA at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, her MSc at LSE and her DPhil at the University of Oxford and, by the age of 36, had become the youngest ever Vice President of the World Bank. She taught at Georgetown University and the Wharton Business School. She later served as the Permanent Secretary of the Department for International Development from 2008 to 2011, Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund from 2011-2014 and as Deputy Governor of the Bank of England from 2014-2017, 

Minister Azhar is a Pakistani politician who is the current Energy Minister of Pakistan, in office since 16 April 2021. Previously, he served as the Finance Minister of Pakistan from 29 March 2021 to 16 April 2021. Prior to that, he served as Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Federal Minister of Industries and Production. He has been a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan since August 2018.

Dr. Miriam Altman is the Head of Strategy for the Telkom Dr. Miriam Altman is Director of Altman Advisory and Professor of 4IR Practice in the School of Economics at the University of Johannesburg.  She is currently leading the development of South Africa’s National Infrastructure Plan 2050. She was previously a Commissioner in the National Planning Commission in the SA Presidency (2010 – 2021) where she was one of the authors of the National Development Plan and more recently leading its work on economic, employment, infrastructure and education policy planning. 

Mr. Asamoah is an investment professional with over 25 years of experience originating and executing transactions in both developed and developing markets. He was the Vice President for Infrastructure, Private Sector and Regional Integration at the African Development Bank (AfDB), with responsibilities including the Bank’s Private Sector Operations; Financial Institutions/Markets & Equity, including Private Equity Funds; NEPAD and Regional Projects; as well as the implementation of sustainable Infrastructure programs throughout Africa. 

Jonathan Leape is Executive Director of the International Growth Centre, an international research centre with a global network of world-leading researchers and country teams across Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East. The IGC works with policymakers in developing countries to promote inclusive and sustainable growth through pathbreaking research. Leape is an Associate Professor of Economics at LSE. His research interests are in public and development economics, and he has published on tax policy, privatisation, and congestion charges. Previously, he was the founding Director of the Centre for Research into Economics and Finance in Southern Africa, established at LSE in 1990 as an initiative of the Commonwealth Heads of Government to support the democratic transition in South Africa. He has also advised the UK Government Economic Service as a Chief Academic Adviser on Taxation.

Stephen Redding's research interests include international trade, economic geography, the economics of transportation, and productivity growth. He is currently the Harold T. Shapiro *64 Professor in Economics in the Economics Department and School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University; Director of the International Trade and Investment (ITI) Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); and Co-Director of the Griswold Center for Economic and Policy Studies (GCEPS) at Princeton University. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society, an associate editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, an International Research Associate of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, and a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

Mr. Muhammad Jehanzeb Khan is a serving Government Officer, presently he is serving as Deputy Chairman Planning Commission. Previously, he has held dual charge of Chairman Planning & Development and Additional Chief Secretary - Energy, Government of Punjab. He did his MBBS from University of Peshawar and MBA (Public Service) University of Birmingham, UK. He held various positions in Government and has 24 years diversified professional experience. His professional expertise includes Public sector Financial management.

Hans Timmer is the World Bank's Chief Economist for South Asia. He assumed this position on January 1, 2019. Before that, he was the Chief Economist for the Europe and Central Asia region of the World Bank.  Under his management in ECA, a series of regional reports, most recently, Toward a New Social Contract and Critical Connections, and a series of regional economic updates are produced.  Prior to these positions, Timmer was Director of the World Bank's Development Prospects Group.

Nicolas Peltier-Thiberge is the Practice Manager for the Latin America and Caribbean in the Transport Global Practice. A French national, Mr. Peltier-Thiberge joined the Bank in September 2002 as a Young Professional in the North Africa and Middle East Transport and Urban unit. He has since held various positions as an Infrastructure Economist and Senior Infrastructure Economist in Latin America and Africa, and as a Portfolio Assistant in the Office of the World Bank Group President. 

Jonas Hjort is a development economist at Columbia and UCL. His research focuses on production (broadly construed) in economies with substantial distortions: in particular, how the performance of private firms and public-sector organizations interacts with three specific frictions often seen in developing countries—incomplete contracting and the corresponding reliance on relationships; high information and trade costs; and limited state capacity

Dr. Eyob Tekalign Tolina, State Minister of Ethiopia’s Ministry of Finance. Dr. Eyob is Chairman of the Board of Ethiopian Public Procurement and Property Administration Agency, and Accounting and Auditing Board of Ethiopia (ABBE). Also serves as a Member of the Board of Directors of the National Bank of Ethiopia, ethio telecom, Ethiopia’s Electric Power Corporation, and the Federal Housing Corporation.

Albert G. Zeufack, a Cameroonian national, is the World Bank’s Chief Economist for Africa. Prior to his appointment in May 2016, he was Practice Manager in the Macroeconomics and Fiscal Management Global Practice and leader of the World Bank-wide Community of Practice for the Management of Natural Resources Rents. His main research interest is in the micro-foundations of macroeconomics.

Mark Williams is a Practice Manager in the Digital Development Global Practice of the World Bank. His responsibilities include Global Knowledge and Expertise and the East Asia and Pacific Region. He is an economist with over 20 years of experience in the economics, regulation, and strategy of the digital sector, covering a range of specialist areas including strategy, policy, regulation, cybersecurity, financial analysis corporate restructuring, and litigation.

Vivien Foster is the Chief Economist for the Infrastructure Vice-Presidency of the World Bank; which covers the areas of Digital Development, Energy & Extractives, Transport and Infrastructure Finance. During her 20 years at the World Bank she has played a variety of leadership roles, including: Global Lead for Energy Economics, Markets and Institutions (2016-18); Practice Manager of the Global Energy Anchor (2012-16); and Lead Economist for Infrastructure in the Africa Region (2006-11). 

Ryu is a third-year economics PhD student at Northwestern University. His research interest lies at the intersection of development economics and political economy.

Forhad Shilpi is a Senior Economist in the Sustainability and Infrastructure Team of the Development Research Group. Her current research focuses on the impacts of infrastructure and communication on rural-urban transformation, the role of domestic market institutions in the transmission of international price signals, and intergenerational mobility in developing countries. Her research has been published in leading development and economics journals such as American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Economic Journal, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Economic Geography and many other field and general journals.

Koichiro Ito is an Associate Professor at Harris School of Public Policy at University of Chicago. He received a BA from Kyoto University, an MA from University of British Columbia, and a PhD from UC Berkeley. Prior to joining University of Chicago, he was a SIEPR Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University and an Assistant Professor at Boston University. His research interests lie at the intersection of environmental and energy economics, industrial organization, and public economics. 

Felix is an applied microeconomist and his research focuses on topics in development economics and industrial organisation. He works at Ofcom, the UK communications services regulator, where he is an external associate of the CAGE Research Centre at the University of Warwick. He has spent the last few years studying different aspects of the passenger vehicle sector in Uganda and more broadly the global North-South trade in used vehicles. He recently received his PhD in Economics from the University of Warwick. 

Mathilde Lebrand is an Economist in the Chief Economist Office of the Infrastructure VPU of the World Bank. Mathilde’s research focuses on development economics, infrastructure, economic geography, and trade. Prior to joining the Bank, Mathilde worked for the WTO and the University of Montreal. Mathilde holds a PhD in economics from the European University Institute.

Nick is an Assistant Professor in the Haas School of Business and the Department of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley. He is also Co-Director of the Cities Research Programme at the International Growth Centre (IGC). His research centers on connecting theory with empirics that combine new sources of granular data with natural experiments to learn about the process of urbanization in developing countries.

Dr. Frederic Abimbola Oladeinde has worked in the transport industry for over 20 years and until now was the Director, Corporate and Investment Planning in Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA). He began his career as a Senior Transport Consultant in a transaction advisory role at Oscar Faber Consulting in London, United Kingdom and in year 2000 joined the Department for Transport, UK as a Senior Transport Planning Adviser, where he was responsible for advising the British Minister of Transport of the impact of various transport schemes and policy options. 

Somik V. Lall is the World Bank’s global lead on territorial development solutions and a lead economist for urban development in its Global Practice for Urban, Resilience and Land. Mr. Lall joined the World Bank in 1999 and today is a recognized expert on job creation and productivity in cities, development of lagging areas, and enhancing economic outcomes with transport connectivity and advises national and sub-national governments on key policy issues. 

Binyam Reja is the Acting Global Director and Practice Manager for the Transport Global Practice in the Infrastructure Vice Presidency of the World Bank. Mr. Reja oversees the World Bank’s Transport Global Unit’s knowledge program, analytical studies, technical support to operational units, partnerships, and corporate mandates. He directs an extensive technical assistance program and analytical studies and leads a team of technical professionals and experts in the delivery of the program. 

Kelsey Jack does research at the intersection of environmental and development economics, with a focus on how individuals, households, and communities impact and are impacted by the environment. Prior to joining the faculty at UCSB as an Associate Professor, Jack was an Assistant Professor at Tufts University and a postdoc at MIT. She is the director of the Poverty Alleviation group at the Environmental Markets Lab (emLab) at UCSB and co-chair of the Energy, Environment and Climate Change sector at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT . She holds a bachelors degree from Princeton University and a PhD from Harvard University. 

Dr. Selvitop is the Acting Director General of DG Foreign Relations of Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (MENR). He has been working for MENR for more than 20 years. He worked actively in several stages and issues related to the Electricity and Natural Gas Market Reform Processes in Turkey, including the preparation of the strategy papers and primary legislation. He was the rapporteur of the Energy Chapter of 10^th National Development Plan. Moreover, he has been actively working as the representative of MENR in various regional and international organizations on energy; such as IEA, G20, Energy Charter Secretariat, Union for Mediterranean, Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), Black Sea Economic Cooperation, etc.

Mr Hill-Lewis is the Mayor of the City of Cape Town. He was elected to Parliament in 2011 at the age of 24, at the time the youngest MP to be elected. He served as the DA’s shadow minister for Finance and shadow minister for Trade and Industry. He served for five years as chief of staff to the then Leader of the Democratic Alliance and Premier of the Western Cape, Helen Zille.

Demetrios Papathanasiou leads more than 100 professionals at the Global Units of the Energy and Extractives Global Practice of the World Bank. He coordinates the overall strategic direction of the Practice, advances the knowledge and learning agenda for the Bank’s energy and extractives professionals, and oversees corporate reporting, trust funds, and partnerships for the Practice. Dr. Papathanasiou has worked for more than 20 years with the World Bank Group on Energy and Infrastructure in Africa, Latin America, East Europe and the Balkans, South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific Islands. He has contributed to developing energy policies in several countries and worked on power generation projects using many diverse technologies: thermal, hydropower, solar, wind, and geothermal. 

Dave Donaldson teaches and carries out research on trade, both international and intranational, with applications in the fields of International Economics, Development Economics, Economic History, Environmental Economics, Urban Economics, and Agricultural Economics. He has studied, among other topics: the welfare and inequality effects of market integration, the impact of improvements in transportation infrastructure, and how trade can mitigate and exacerbate the effects of climate change. This work was awarded the 2017 John Bates Clark Medal, given by the American Economic Association to the US-based economist “under the age of forty who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge”, as well as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and several grants from the National Science Foundation.

Robin Burgess is a Professor of Economics, Co-Founder and Director of the International Growth Centre and Director of the Economics of Environment and Energy Research Programme, all at the LSE. He also serves as the current President of BREAD, on the Editorial Board of VoxDev, on the Board of CEGA and is an Affiliate of J-PAL and Y-RISE, a Research Fellow in CEPR and a Fellow of the British Academy. His main interests are in the areas of environmental economics, development economics and political economy and he is currently working in Bangladesh, Brazil, Kenya, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, South Korea and Uganda.

Niclas Moneke is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Oxford and an affiliate of the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford. His research interests centre on Energy and Environmental Economics, Development Economics and International Trade, focusing on how access to energy in low income countries affects economic development. Niclas received his PhD in economics from the London School of Economics in 2020.

Stefano is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick. He is an affiliated to J-PAL, CEPR (development and labour), CAGE and the EEE program at STICERD. He is also IGC lead academic for Ethiopia and he serves as trustee for the Global Change Data Lab. He use experimental and structural methods to investigate how to make labour markets more inclusive and more efficient.

Woan Foong Wong is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Oregon. Woan Foong is an international trade economist who studies how trade frictions, in the form of transportation technology and trade policies, shape economic activity, firm outcomes, and trade flows. Her recent projects investigate the role of entrepôts within the global trade network, the long-run impact of large-scale trade policy reforms on FDI inflows and private firms, the economic underpinnings of WTO rules and regulations governing preferential trade agreements as well as the long-run relationship between trade and growth of cities. She has been awarded the Sundaran Memorial Prize for Young Malaysian Researchers 2018-19 by the World Bank Development Research Group, and her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Bureau of Economic Research, and Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia. A Malaysian native, she completed dual Bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Music Composition at Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music, as well as earned her Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Richard Newfarmer was most recently the World Bank’s Special Representative to the United Nations and World Trade Organization, based in Geneva, Switzerland where he worked with country delegations and Geneva-based international organizations on issues of trade (WTO, UNCTAD and ITC), labour (the ILO), climate change (the WMO and WFP), and health (WHO, Global Fund, UNAIDs). Most recently, he has focused on aid for trade. He has also lectured at the World Trade Institute, University of St. Gallen, and the Graduate Institute, among others.

Ian Walker is Manager of the World Bank’s Jobs Group (since 2018) and was previously Lead Economist in the Jobs Group. His recent technical work is focused on the analysis of market failures related to poor jobs outcomes in LIC and MIC settings and improving jobs outcomes through better market linkages. He has published on social protection and labor, education and skill development, health, nutrition, violence prevention, governance / accountability mechanisms, infrastructure services and private sector development. 

Kate is an Associate Director of the DevLab at Duke and Research Scientist in the Department of Economics at Duke University. She completed her D.Phil. (Ph.D.) in the Department of Economics at the University of Oxford, where she was affiliated with the Centre for the Study of African Economies. She is also a visiting faculty member at the Lahore School of Economics and at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, and a Fellow of the Center for Economic Research in Pakistan and the Consortium for Development Policy Research in Pakistan. Previously, she worked on research and policy outreach on foreign aid, trade and development at the Center for Global Development and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC.

Roman David Zarate is an Economist in the Trade and International Integration Team in the Development Research Group. His research lies at the intersection between international trade and development economics. In particular, he studies how different forms of market integration across and within countries impact welfare, aggregate productivity, and growth in developing countries. Methodologically, his research combines quasi-experimental variation with structural evaluations. He holds a Bachelor and Masters in Economics from Universidad de Los Andes in Colombia, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Alexander D. Rothenberg is an assistant professor of economics and senior research associate in the Center for Policy Research. He is an applied microeconomist whose research interests lie at the intersection of development and urban economics. Prior to joining the Maxwell School, Rothenberg was an economist at the RAND Corporation, and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. His research studies the effects of different urban, regional and private-sector policy interventions. 

Treb Allen is the Distinguished Associate Professor of Economics and Globalization at Dartmouth College and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Allen earned his Ph.D. at Yale University and has previously held positions at Northwestern University, Stanford University and Princeton University. His research spanning the fields of international economics, development economics, urban economics, and economic geography has been published in leading economics journals including Econometrica, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Political Economy, and the Review of Economic Studies.  Allen serves as a co-editor at the Journal of International Economics, an associate editor of Econometrica, and a member of the Board of Editors of the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.

Craig McIntosh is a development economist who specializes in evaluating large-scale anti-poverty programs in Africa and Latin America.  He is Professor at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy, and co-director of JPAL’s agriculture initiative (ATAI) as well as UCSD’s Policy Design and Evaluation Lab.  Currently research projects test how technology can be used to extend financial services and deepen agricultural markets, as well as leading a set of studies in collaboration with USAID seeking to understand how the impact of cash transfers relates to more conventional types of development assistance.  

Cong Peng is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and a research associate at the Centre for Economic Performance at LSE. Cong received his Ph.D. from The London School of Economics in 2019. Cong’s research features using real-time data to solve pressing problems in development and urban economics, and connecting advances in data science with econometric methods.

Mar Reguant (Ph.D. MIT) is an Associate Professor in Economics at Northwestern University and Research Fellow at the Barcelona School of Economics. Her research uses high-frequency data to study the impact of auction design and environmental regulation on electricity markets and energy-intensive industries. She was awarded an NSF CAREER grant in 2015, and the Sabadell Prize for Economic Research in 2017. Her research is currently funded by the European Research Council.

Maria Vagliasindi is currently Lead Economist at the Chief Economist Office of the World Bank leading analytical work and policy dialogue on energy and infrastructure reforms in several developing countries worldwide. Maria has written widely on the economics of competition, regulation and public private partnerships, and also on governance of state owned enterprises.

Jevgenijs Steinbuks is an Economist in the Sustainability and Infrastructure Team of the Development Research Group. His areas of expertise are in energy and environmental economics, industrial organization, and real estate and urban economics. His current research focuses on sustainable resource and land use, power markets, and infrastructure and growth. Dr. Steinbuks has extensive experience with academia, public sector and international institutions.

He is a PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Munich (LMU) and the ifo Institute and he will complete his degree this summer. In his research, he uses regional variation to answer policy-relevant research questions, with a particular focus on digital infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa. He is presenting work on the effects of early Internet on local economic growth.

Woubet Kassa is an economist in the Office of the Chief Economist for the Africa Region at the World Bank. Before joining the Africa Region, he worked with the Development Research Group. He is currently working on topics including international trade, global value chains, regional integration, and digital technologies. His most recent books include Africa in the New Trade Environment: Market Access in Troubled Times and Industrialization in Sub-Saharan Africa: Seizing Opportunities in Global Value Chains. He received his PhD in economics from American University where he is currently an adjunct professorial lecturer.

Ulrich's research interests include political and development economics, with focus on the implications of climate change and infrastructure for conflict. At Princeton University's Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, he is part of the “Measuring Commercial Influence” initiative. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Lausanne, M.Sc. in Economic Policy from the University College London and B.A. in Economics from the University of Zurich.

Jeffrey Pagel is a Postdoc at the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics. His research uses applied microeconometrics with geospatial data to understand the dynamics between development and natural resources. Jeffrey also works as an Ethical and Project Evaluation Consultant for Health Media Labs in Washington, D.C., which focuses on social & behavioral research in public health, HIV/AIDS, children, education, refugee & migration, WASH, agriculture, and M&E.

Luke is a PhD student at the University of Oxford, department of Economics and stipendiary lecturer at Corpus Christi college Oxford, having completed his undergraduate degree at the London School of Economics. His research centres on spatial economics, development economics, and labour/public economics, often on topics relating to the spatial distribution of inequality.

Vivien Foster is the Chief Economist for the Infrastructure Vice-Presidency of the World Bank; which covers the areas of Digital Development, Energy & Extractives, Transport and Infrastructure Finance. During her 20 years at the World Bank she has played a variety of leadership roles, including: Global Lead for Energy Economics, Markets and Institutions (2016-18); Practice Manager of the Global Energy Anchor (2012-16); and Lead Economist for Infrastructure in the Africa Region (2006-11).