Authors

Colin Andrews

Colin Andrews is a program manager in the World Bank’s Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice. He has over 15 years’ social protection experience in Africa, South Asia, and in global policy. Colin leads the Partnership for Economic Inclusion (PEI), a multi-partner initiative to support the scale-up of national economic inclusion programs. Colin managed lending operations on safety nets and service delivery in Africa. He has published widely on safety net impacts, crisis response, and financing. Previously, he worked for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, European Commission, and nongovernmental organizations. He received a Master’s in Economics from Trinity College, Dublin.

Andreas Eberhard-Ruiz

Andreas Eberhard-Ruiz is a development economist working for the Jobs Group of the World Bank. Prior to joining the World Bank, he worked for the research department of the Ugandan finance ministry as a Fellow of the UK’s Overseas Development Institute. He then collaborated extensively with the World Bank as a consultant on several analytical projects on trade and competitiveness across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. For his research, Mr. Eberhard-Ruiz has examined the spillover effects of conflict on household welfare across neighboring countries in sub-Saharan Africa through the trade and refugee channels. He has also published on the spatial economic impact of regional market integration in East Africa and holds a PhD from the University of Sussex.

Paul Bance

Paul Bance works as a senior operations specialist in the Social Protection Department of the World Bank, with a focus on Western and Central Africa. Over the last ten years, he has developed an expertise on community development and public works programs in fragile and conflict settings. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from the European University Institute.

Elena Casanovas

Elena Casanovas is a Consultant in the Jobs Group at the World Bank and provides quantitative, analytical, and research support in the areas of labor markets, growth, and structural transformation. Prior to joining the Bank, Elena was a Research Associate at Innovations for Poverty Action in Peru. She holds a BA in Political Science from the Complutense University of Madrid and a Master’s in Economics from Columbia University, where she studied as a La Caixa Fellow.

Sarang Chaudhary

Sarang Chaudhary is a consultant in the World Bank’s Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice. His work at the World Bank focuses on using data and econometric analysis in operations and research. In his previous role, he led a non-profit in India working on community-driven development alongside the state and city governments on grass root program implementation. Sarang received a bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Uttar Pradesh Technical University in India and also holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley.

Timothy Clay

Timothy Clay is a consultant with the World Bank’s Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice. In his current role, he works with the Partnership for Economic Inclusion (PEI) to support analytical and operational work on economic inclusion programming. Timothy is experienced with labor market analysis, social security design and financing, and monitoring and evaluation of lending projects. Timothy holds a B.Sc. in both Economics and International Affairs and a dual M.Sc. in Public Policy and Human Development from Maastricht University and the United Nations University Merit (UNU-Merit) in the Netherlands.

Jörg Langbein

Jörg Langbein is a development economist working as a consultant for the Jobs Group of the World Bank and as an Economist for the German Development Bank (KfW). At the World Bank, he has worked on the development of tools to ease the analysis of surveys for the supply side of the jobs diagnostic. The results contributed to the JOIN database. Furthermore, he was involved in jobs diagnostics and background papers for Systematic Country Diagnostics in several countries with a focus on Sub-Sahara Africa. A key part of Jörg’s research is the analysis of large datasets to identify evidence-based policies on energy, labor and climate change related topics. He frequently applies impact evaluation methods and combines them with spatial economic analysis. Prior to joining the World Bank, he worked as a researcher for the RWI in Essen, Germany, where he also obtained his PhD.

Dino Merotto

Dino Merotto is a Lead Economist in the Jobs Cross-Cutting Solutions Area at the World Bank. Prior, he was a Lead Economist in the Economic Policy and Department of the World Bank, working extensively as a Senior Country Economist on growth diagnostics, public expenditure analysis and debt sustainability in Uganda, Moldova and Ethiopia. He is a co-author of recent data knowledge tools (BuDDy for business analysis, BOOST for public expenditures, and of the soon to be released PREM debt and macro vulnerability “PRISM”).

In 1999 Mr Merotto joined the Bank as an Advisor to the Executive Director for the United Kingdom (IMF/IBRD), and prior to that, he worked in DFID as Country Economist for Ghana, Sierra Leone, the Gambia, and for the Caribbean Region. He began his development career as a Fellow of the UK’s Overseas Development Institute in 1989, working in Fiji’s Finance Ministry.

Aude de Montesquiou

Aude de Montesquiou is a Social Protection Specialist at PEI. She supports the PEI strategy and workplan and co-led the start-up and fundraising for PEI’s inception. With over 15 years’ experience with the WBG in poverty reduction, Aude was the Task Team Leader for the CGAP-Ford Foundation “Graduation Program” from 2009-2017, overseeing 10 pilots and coordinating research. At CGAP, she also worked on aid-effectiveness, savings, and microinsurance. Previously, she worked on microfinance impact, and with pro-poor financial service providers in Lebanon and Togo. She has a Master’s in Development Studies (Sciences Po, Paris) and a Bachelor’s in History from La Sorbonne.

Kevwe Pela

Kevwe Pela is a young professional working with the Jobs Group of the World Bank. Her work includes country specific Job Diagnostics and human capital projections. She also coordinates the monthly Knowledge4Jobs digest and works extensively with the Social Protection and Labor Global Practice on projects involving economic empowerment for Iraqi women, and skills and private sector job creation. Prior to joining the Jobs Group, she was a DFID-WB-UNHCR fellow, where she was responsible for developing research papers to inform policy on the labor market impact of refugee education in Jordan. She completed her PhD in Development Policy and Management, and her masters in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship from the University of Manchester, United Kingdom.

Puja Vasudeva Dutta

Puja Vasudeva Dutta is an economist with expertise in social protection. She worked as a senior economist in the World Bank’s Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice in South Asia and East Asia for over a decade. Prior to joining the Bank, she was a researcher in the Poverty Research Unit (Sussex, UK) and the National Council of Applied Economic research (India), focusing on poverty, inequality, and labor markets. Her recent work spans research, technical assistance, and operational support on social protection policy reform, program design and delivery systems. Puja completed her DPhil in Economics at the University of Sussex.

Michael Weber

Michael Weber is a Senior Economist that works for the Jobs Group of the World Bank. He has published and worked on youth employment, informality, labor regulations, active labor market policies, and social insurance schemes. He has developed innovative projects to explore behavioral and financial interventions, youth’s preferences and constraints, enforcement effects of labor codes, or simulations on the effects of labor policies and tax and benefit systems in developing countries. In recent years he has also been active in monitoring global and regional job trends and contributed research on data quality issues as well as labor market indicators. Prior to joining the World Bank Group in 2008, Michael Weber worked at a joint research organization of the three main Universities of Vienna on applied research topics. He holds a PhD in Economics and Master Degrees in Economics as well as Commerce.

Gordon Betcherman

Gordon Betcherman is a Professor in the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa. He is also the Director of the School’s doctoral program in international development. Dr. Betcherman’s research interests are in labor economics, demography, social policy, and the economics of development. His most recent publications are on the impacts of labor market institutions in developing countries. He was a co-author of the World Bank’s 2013 World Development Report on Jobs. Dr. Betcherman joined the University of Ottawa in 2009 after 11 years at the World Bank where he last was Sector Manager and Lead Economist in the Human Development Sector, Europe and Central Asia Region. He holds a PhD from the University of California at Los Angeles.

Kunal Sen

Professor Kunal Sen has over three decades of experience in academic and applied development economics research. He is the author of eight books and the editor of five volumes on the economics and political economy of development. From 2019 he is the Director of UNU-WIDER, and he is a professor of development economics at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester.

Professor Sen is a leading international expert on the political economy of growth and development. He has performed extensive research on international finance, the political economy determinants of inclusive growth, the dynamics of poverty, social exclusion, female labour force participation, and the informal sector in developing economies. His research has focused on India, East Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. His books include The Political Economy of India’s Growth Episodes (2016), The Process of Financial Liberalization in India (1997), and the Economic Restructuring in East Asia and India: Perspectives on Policy Reform (1995). His is a co-editor of Deals and Development: The Political Dynamics of Growth Episodes (2018) and The Politics of Inclusive Development (2016). And has also written twenty-five chapters in other volumes and published more than ninety peer-reviewed journal articles on topics in his field.

In addition to his work as a professor of development economics, Kunal Sen has been the Joint Research Director of the Effective States and Inclusive Development (ESID) research centre, and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Labor Economics in Bonn. He has also served in advisory roles with national governments and bilateral and multilateral development agencies, including the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

He has been awarded the Sanjaya Lall Prize in 2006 and Dudley Seers Prize in 2003 for his publications.

Piotr Lewandowski

Piotr Lewandowski is a labour economist, a President of the Board at Institute for Structural Research (IBS), Warsaw, Poland, and a Research Fellow at IZA, Bonn, Germany. In the past he collaborated with Warsaw School of Economics and the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy in Poland. His research interests include the impact of technology on jobs, wage polarization, labour market segmentation, minimum wage, energy poverty, and the labour market effects of climate and energy policies.

Ivette Maria Contreras-González

Ivette Maria Contreras-González is a Consultant at the Data Production and Methods Unit of the Development Data Group of the World Bank. She is a Ph.D. Candidate in Economics at George Washington University. Her research is focused on development economics, with special emphasis on migration, and survey methods.

Efşan Nas Özen

Efşan Nas Özen is an Economist at the World Bank’s Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice. She works with government institutions and development partners on addressing human development issues through lending operations, technical assistance and analytical studies. Her recent work focuses on transitions from social assistance to labor market for urban and rural vulnerable populations, labor and skills demand assessment, and labor market interventions. She has technical expertise in labor economics, economics of education, behavioral and experimental economics, and impact evaluations. Efşan holds an MPhil in Economics from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Economics from the University of Bologna.

Ayşenur Acar Erdoğan

Ayşenur Acar Erdoğan is an Economist for the World Bank Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice. She has been also providing cross support to Health, Nutrition and Population team in Ankara. Prior to joining the Bank, she worked as researcher at Bahcesehir University Center for Economic and Social Research (BETAM) in Istanbul, Turkey.

Ayşenur holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Economics from Istanbul Bilgi University, Master’s degree in Economics from Galatasaray University and an undergraduate degree on Statistics from Yildiz Technical University. Her main areas of interest include labor economics, social protection, poverty reduction, inequality and health financing & economics.

Kevin Donovan

Kevin Donovan is an assistant professor of economics at the Yale School of Management. His work focuses on constraints to firm growth and labor markets frictions in developing countries.

Will Jianyu Lu

Will Jianyu Lu is a senior economist at the Central Bank of Chile. He works at the intersection of trade and economic development. Recent work studies the firm-level impact of infrastructure growth in China and the role of labor market frictions in the development process.

Todd Schoellman

Todd Schoellman is a senior research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. His work focuses on the role of human capital and labor markets for growth and development.

Xinshen Diao

Xinshen Diao is currently the Deputy Division Director and a Senior Research Fellow in the Development Strategy and Governance Division of IFPRI and a subtheme leader for the CGIAR’s Policy, Institution, and Market Research Program (CRP2). She has extensive experience on managing large research programs and doing research on economic development and growth, intersectoral linkages, regional integration and dynamics, agricultural policies and institutional changes. She has published more than 100 articles in various peer-reviewed economic journals, IFPRI books and monographs, and external book chapters. Before coming to IFPRI, Xinshen was an assistant professor of applied economics at the University of Minnesota, stationed at the Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture and division director and assistant director general of the Economic Reform Institute of China in Beijing in the late 1980s. Xinshen earned a B.A. and M.A. in business economics from the Beijing Institute of Economics and a Ph.D. in applied economics from the University of Minnesota.

Mia Ellis

Margaret McMillan

Patricia Bernedo

Antonio Martins-Neto

Antonio Martins-Neto is a consultant in the Markets, Competition and Technology Unit Global Practice at the World Bank and a Ph.D. Fellow at the United Nations University (UNU-MERIT).  Before joining the World Bank, Antonio worked as Associate Economic Affairs Officer at the United Nations and Associate Economist at the Federation of Industries of the State of Ceará. Antonio holds a Master’s degree from the University of São Paulo in Brazil. Research interest includes Private Sector Development and Labor Economics. His most recent research focuses on measuring firm-level technology adoption, the relationship between technology adoption and labor market outcomes, and the relationship between innovation and wages.

Kyung Min Lee

Kyung Min Lee is an Economist at the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation Global Practice of the World Bank Group and an affiliate faculty member at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. His research is on innovation and entrepreneurship, firm dynamics, and applied microeconomics. For his research, he analyzes large individual- or firm-level surveys and administrative databases using quasi experimental designs. He received the Kauffman Dissertation Fellowship from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in 2018. He holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from George Mason University.

Caroline Nogueira

Caroline Nogueira is an Economist (ETC) in the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation Global Practice at the World Bank Group. Her analytical and operational work focuses on private sector development, firm dynamics, technology adoption, trade and gender. Her expertise includes designing, implementing, and analyzing complex firm-level surveys and impact evaluations, with extensive field experience in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Prior to joining the Bank, Caroline worked at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC). She holds an MPhil in Development Economics and is a PhD Candidate in Economics at University of Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne.

Siddharth Hari

Siddharth Hari is an Economist in the World Bank’s Social Protection and Jobs Global practice. He works on lending operations and analytical products on issues related to labor markets and human development in Europe and Central Asia. His recent work focuses on supporting the labor market integration of vulnerable communities and policies to promote skills development and improve intermediation services. His broader research interests include social safety nets, labor and the political economy of development. He holds a PhD in economics from New York University and an MA in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics.

Mike Dawe

Mike is a senior consultant in skills development and active labour market policy.  He currently supports World Bank projects in Bangladesh and the Caribbean which are using skills development, both to support investors and to make sure that their successes lead to socioeconomic improvements.  He is also working with the World Bank in Saudi Arabia on TVET regulation, and on a Mastercard-funded programme with the Rwanda Development Authority using Apprenticeships and Internships to promote growth, jobs and exciting careers.  He was Managing Director of City & Guilds International, a large provider of vocational education technologies and services, until 2016.  The golden thread through his career is ‘skills for social and economic prosperity’ – incidentally also the strap line of the first business unit he ran.

Alpha Camara

Alpha Camara is a Research, Monitoring & Evaluation specialist in Effective Intervention. Alpha worked in the World Bank for several years as a short-term consultant in the areas of education. Prior to this, Alpha worked in the Regional Education Directorate, in the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education in The Gambia as a Principal Education Officer. Alpha holds a MSc in Sector Analysis and Management of Education Systems (2018) in The University of The Gambia and MPSM in Public Sector Management (2010) in The Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration. He also holds a B.Ed. in Education (2004) also from The University of The Gambia.

Alieu K. Bah

Alieu K. Bah is a Girls and Women Empowerment Specialist in the World Bank’s Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice, working in the Gambia, West Africa. Prior to this, Alieu served as an Early Years fellow of the World Bank in the Gambia working across the Human Development sectors and ensuring the leveraging of synergies across the portfolio in the Gambia. Alieu completed his MSc in Public Health at Lund University in Sweden in 2020. He holds a BSc in Public and Environmental Health (2015) from the University of the Gambia.

Anita Okemini

Anita Okemini is a Private Sector Specialist with the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation practice with a current focus on Europe and Central Asia. Anita brings over 12 years of technical experience implementing projects focused on Innovation ecosystem and MSME development. Prior to joining the Bank, Anita was the Global Director for Inclusive growth at the ONE Campaign and worked at other key institutions including Clinton Health Access Initiative, Mckinsey and Adam Smith international. Anita has a Master of Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School and a BSC in Economics from University College London.

Tatiana Segal

Tatiana Segal is a Senior Operations Officer with the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation Global Practice. Tatiana brings over 25 years of operational experience, implementing projects in Europe, Central Asia, East Asia, and Africa regions. Tatiana brings a strong commitment to delivering bespoke client solutions and is an avid advocate of piloting cutting edge approaches and evidence based operational policies for project management and implementation. Tatiana is currently leading several projects in Central Asia, including the Tajikistan Rural Economy Development Project which received an ECAVP 2023 Team award.

Mansur Ahmed

Mansur Ahmed, a Bangladeshi national, is a Senior Economist at the Public Policy and Expenditure team in the Global Engagement Unit of the Agriculture and Food Global Practice. His current work focuses on agricultural policy analysis, public expenditure review, and evidenced-based policy dialogues for repurposing agricultural policies and support towards a resilient food system transformation. Mansur joined the Bank as Agriculture Economist in 2017 in the South Asia Region. He has since worked in, or, provided cross-support for South Asia, Africa, and East Asia; and has been leading/co-leading advisory activities and operations on agricultural policies, agricultural productivity, market linkages, rural jobs, and rural non-farm entrepreneurship. Before joining the World Bank, he worked at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Mansur holds a Ph.D. in Economics from North Carolina State University.

FNU Jonaed

FNU Jonaed is a dynamic young Economist specializing in research and analytics, adept at leveraging data-driven insights to address complex socio-economic issues. Currently, he is working as a research consultant at the World Bank’s Agricultural Global Practice.  His career commenced as a research associate at a regional think tank and has led him to pivotal roles at renowned organizations like the World Bank and FAO. His professional trajectory has equipped him with profound insights into areas like poverty, equity, employment, agriculture and rural development, food security, social protection, labor market, public policy, and gender dynamics, specifically in the context of Bangladesh. Adept at advanced methodologies — such as micro-econometrics, frontier econometrics methods, cross-sectional and time series analysis, impact evaluation, statistical modeling, economic modeling (SAM & CGE), public expenditure analysis, and survey design — he is skilled in leveraging tools like STATA, R, Excel, and ArcGIS for data interpretation and KoBo Toolbox for survey data collection. Beyond his technical capabilities, Jonaed also honed valuable interpersonal and communication skills through extensive collaboration with multidisciplinary teams while working with and for development partners, governments, NGOs, think tanks, and universities. He holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Dhaka.

Jiang RU

Jiang RU is a senior environmental specialist at the Environment, Natural Resources and Blue Economy Unit of the LAC Region. Trained in ecology and environmental management, he has led the preparation and implementation of multiple cross-GP operations and ASAs on green development, pollution management, climate-smart agriculture, sustainable forest management, and blue economy in EAP, SAR, and LAC regions. He and his team prepared the BEST during the COVID-19 pandemic.