Responsive by Design: Building Adaptive Social Protection Systems in South Asia

Ms. Sherburne-Benz is the World Bank’s Regional Director for Human Development in the South Asia Region since July 2019. Before assuming this role, she was Practice Director in the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice covering multiple regions of the world, including Europe and Central Asia, Middle East North Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, and Sub-Saharan Africa. She also served as a Senior Regional Advisor for 3 years to the Vice President of the Africa Region covering economic issues and human development and before that as Sector Manager for Social Protection in Africa for 6 years. Prior to joining the World Bank, Ms. Sherburne-Benz worked on agricultural research projects in Niger and Madagascar. Ms. Sherburne-Benz received her PhD in International Trade, International Finance, and Development Economics from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and her Bachelors degree in Economics from Vanderbilt University.

Mr. Michal Rutkowski is the Global Director for Social Protection and Jobs – overseeing the World Bank Global Practice responsible for protecting poor and vulnerable from shocks through improving their job opportunities, earning capacity, and social insurance and social assistance (safety net) coverage. Until July 2016, he was the Director for Multilateral Organizations, and prior to that the Country Director for the Russian Federation and the Resident Representative in Moscow for three years.   In the period 2004-12, he was Sector Director for Human Development in the Middle East and North Africa and then South Asia regions of the World Bank. Mr. Rutkowski holds an M.Sc. and Ph.D from Warsaw School of Economics and finished his post-graduate studies at the London School of Economics. He also graduated from the Executive Development program at the Harvard Business School in 1999, and from the Leadership for Collective Intelligence program run by Dialogos in 2010. 

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. Prior to these positions, Mr. Timmer was Director of the World Bank's Development Prospects Group. Timmer is a quantitative international macroeconomist and econometrician with 30 years of management experience in leading teams of modelers, forecasters, and policy analysts. His experience ranges from long-term structural analyses of the economic impact of environmental policies, trade policies, and tax reforms, to short-term monitoring of the business cycle and analysis of monetary and fiscal policies. Before joining the World Bank in 2000, Mr. Timmer was head of international economic analysis at the Central Planning Bureau in the Netherlands. He has vast experience working with the European Commission, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as well as with the Indian Planning Commission and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He holds a Master’s degree in econometrics from Erasmus University in Rotterdam, and was a researcher at the University of Lodz in Poland and at the Netherlands Economic Institute.

Shazia Marri is a Pakistani politician who is currently the Federal Minister for Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety (PASS) and Chairperson Benazir Income Support Program (BISP). She has been a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan since August 2018. Previously she was a member of the National Assembly from July 2012 to August 2013 and again from August 2013 to May 2018. She was first elected to Provincial Assembly of Sindh in 2002 and served as Provincial Minister for Electric Power. She was re-elected to the Provincial Assembly in 2008 on a reserved seat for women, representing Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and served as the Provincial Minister for Information from 2008 to 2010.  

Ms. Arti Ahuja joined Indian Administrative Service in 1990 after completing her Masters in Economics and LLB and is currently posted as Secretary, Ministry of Labour & Employment. Before assuming this charge she was holding charge of Secretary, Ministry of Chemicals & Petrochemicals. She worked in Ministry of Health & Family Welfare as Additional Secretary and performed the duties of Nodal Officer for Covid-19 during the pandemic. She has a career spanning more than 30 years in the Central Government and the State mostly in the social sector, including health and nutrition. She has done Masters in Public Policy with specialization in Health from Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University and Masters in Public Health from Harvard University. She was a Member of the Independent Expert Group of the Global Nutrition Report, an Independent Global Report brought out every year; and was also a Senior Honorary Research Associate at the Global Institute of Health, University College, London. She has written a number of articles for different Journals and Books.

Mr. Ismail Azzam Wajeeh is currently the Managing Director of Aasandha Company of Maldives, overseeing the administration and reform of the National Social Healthcare Financing Scheme of Maldives. Prior to his current position, Mr. Azzam served as the CEO of the National Social Protection Agency (NSPA) of Maldives from 2017 to 2022, providing strategic, financial and operational leadership and technical support to the Agency in implementing its mandate under the National Social Health Insurance Act and Social Protection Act. As CEO of the Agency, he had actively worked with donor agencies like World Bank, WHO, Unicef and other UN agencies to introduce and implement major reforms to the social protection sector of Maldives. The social protection information system used by NSPA, the introduction of the National Social Protection Framework, the establishment of the National Disability Registry, and overseeing the drafting and implementation of the guidelines for the social protection programs are some aspects that Mr.Azzam spearheaded. Mr. Azzam holds a Masters of Human Science degree in Sociology and Anthropology and a Bachelor of Arts (First Class Honors) degree in Business Management.

Thomas Walker is a Lead Economist and Program Leader for Human Development at the World Bank. He is co-editor of Responsive by Design. His work at the World Bank has focused on social protection, jobs, and poverty spanning the South Asia, Middle East and North Africa, and Pacific regions. Thomas holds an MA and PhD in Economics from Cornell University (USA), and a B.Ec. (Hons) from the University of New South Wales (Australia).

Kelly Johnson is the Senior Strategy and Operations Officer in the Human Development Vice President’s Front Office. She currently covers social protection and jobs, education, and health across the globe. While her current position covers all of human development, Kelly’s technical specialty is social protection where she has worked extensively on service delivery, adaptive social protection, safety nets, economic inclusion and public works. Her experience spans multiple regions with a particular focus on Eastern and Southern Africa as well as South Asia as a technical expert in addition to corporate assignments within the World Bank. Kelly holds a BAH from Queen’s University (Canada), and MSc. From the London School of Economics (UK).

Ugo Gentilini is Global Lead for Social Assistance with the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice at the World Bank. His interests encompass research and practice on social protection from high-income countries to fragile states. With a PhD in Economics, he has published extensively on social assistance in the context of, for example, labor markets, urbanization, food security and nutrition, subsidy reforms, humanitarian assistance, displacement and mobility. His recent books include Exploring Universal Basic Income (2020), Adaptive Social Protection (2020), and the 1.5 Billion People Question (2017); he is leading the global tracker of social protection responses to COVID-19; he has been a team member of the World Development Report 2019; and he is co-founder of the flagship The State of Social Safety Nets in the World Series. Ugo began his career in 2002 with the UN World Food Programme, and since 2016 he has been producing a weekly newsletter on social protection reaching thousands of subscribers.