Event

Book Launch and Panel Discussion on

Innovative Financing for Development*

Panelists:
Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, Governor, State Bank of Pakistan
Dr. Caleb Fundanga, Governor, Central Bank of Zambia
Alan Gelb, Director,Development Policy, World Bank
Philippe Le Houerou, VP, Concessional and Global Partnerships, World Bank
Giovanni Majnoni, Executive Director, World Bank (Albania, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, San Marino and Timor-Leste)
Sir K. Dwight Venner, Governor, Eastern Caribbean Central Bank
John Williamson, Senior Fellow, Peterson Institue for International Economics

Thursday, October 9, 2008
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
IMF HQ1 Reception Hall
720 19th Street, NW, Washington D.C.

RSVP: Rebecca Russ (rruss@worldbank.org).

The panel discussion will be followed by a cocktail reception.

* The book argues that poor countries, especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa, can potentially raise tens of billions of dollars annually through innovative methods of raising market-based development finance: securitization of future-flow receivables; diaspora bonds; and GDP-indexed bonds. It also highlights the role of sovereign ratings in facilitating access to international markets.

"This book will help better our understanding of development finance..."  M. Yunus, Nobel Laureate

CHAIR

Uri Dadush
Director, Development Prospects Group and International Trade Department, World Bank

Mr. Dadush is the current chair of the World Bank' Migration Working Group. Mr. Dadush heads the Development Prospects Group which is responsible for monitoring, analysis and projection of the world economy, global financial markets and international migration and their implications for developing countries. He is also Director of the International Trade Department of the World Bank. Mr. Dadush was previously Chair of the Economic Policy Sector Board and Director of Economic Policy.  Prior to joining the World Bank in 1992, Mr. Dadush was President of the Economist Intelligence Unit, part of The Economist Group, from 1986 to 1992.  He was Group Vice President, International, for Data Resources, Inc., from 1982 -1986. He has also worked as a consultant with McKinsey and Co. in Italy and Denmark.  
 

PRESENTERS

Suhas Ketkar
Visiting Professor, Vanderbilt University

Ketkar is a recognized expert on the emerging markets of Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He is currently Professor of Economics and Director of the Graduate Program in Economic Development at Vanderbilt University. Previously he worked as a financial economist and strategist for 25 years with several Wall Street firms including RBS Greenwich Capital, Credit Suisse First Boston, Marine Midland Bank, and Fidelity Investments.

Dilip Ratha
Lead Economist, Migration and Remittances Team, Development Prospects Group, World Bank

Mr. Ratha's work reflects a deep interest in financing development in poor countries. He has been working on emerging markets for nearly two decades while at the World Bank and prior to that, at Credit Agricole Indosuez, Singapore; Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; the Policy Group, New Delhi; and Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi.

PANELISTS

Dr. Shamshad Akhtar
Governor, State Bank of Pakistan

Dr. Shamshad Akhtar is the first woman Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan. Prior to her appointment as SBP Governor, Dr. Akhtar served at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in various positions including Director General, Southeast Asia Department, and Director, Governance, Finance and Trade Division for East and Central Asia Department. Before joining the ADB, Dr. Akhtar worked for 10 years as an Economist in the World Bank’s Resident Mission in Islamabad. In Pakistan, she also worked briefly with the Planning Offices of both the Federal and Sindh Governments. She has a Ph.D. in Economics from the U.K.’s Paisley College of Technology in 1980. She is a post-doctoral fellowship Fulbright Scholar and was a visiting fellow at the Department of Economics, Harvard University in 1987. 

Caleb Fundunga
Governor, Central Bank of Zambia

Dr Caleb Mailoni Fundanga has served as Governor of the Bank of Zambia since March of 2002, after serving as Senior Advisor to the President of the African Development Bank in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire from 1998. Further, Dr. Fundanga was Executive Director at the African Development Bank, prior to the post of Senior Advisor.  He has had a stellar career in public service and is currently Alternate Governor of the IMF Board of Governors.  He is the Chairperson of the Programmes Committee of the African Research Consortium, of which he is also a Board member. He is Chairman of the Junior Achievement Zambia Board.

Alan Harold Gelb
Director, Development Policy, Development Economics Vice Presidency, World Bank

Before assuming his current position in July 2004, Alan Gelb was the Bank’s Chief Economist for Africa.  Before that, he was staff director of the 1996 World Development Report, From Plan to Market, and chief of the transition division in the Bank’s policy research department.  He is a specialist on transition economies, financial systems, macroeconomic management, commodity prices and the economics and political economy of oil-exporting countries.  He has published several books and scholarly articles on these and related subjects, and co-authored Can Africa Claim the 21st Century?, an authoritative study on African development.

Philippe H. Le Houerou
Vice President, Concessional Finance and Global Partnerships, World Bank

Mr. Le Houérou oversees the Bank’s concessional finance portfolio. He has policy oversight of the Bank’s trust funds portfolio and a wide range of global initiatives and innovative financing mechanisms the Bank is involved in, such as the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm), and the pilot Advance Market Commitment (AMC) for pneumococcal vaccines. He also leads policy negotiations and replenishment processes for the International Development Association (IDA) and co-chairs the replenishment process for the GEF.

Giovanni Majnoni
Executive Director at the World Bank for Albania, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, San Marino and Timor-Leste

Giovanni Majnoni is the World Bank Executive Director for Albania, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, San Marino, and Timor Leste since November 2006.  He holds a graduate degree in Economics from the University of Rome (1978) and Columbia University (1981). In November 1998, Giovanni Majnoni joined the World Bank where he has led several joint World Bank-IMF missions (Colombia, Ecuador, Barbados, and Paraguay) and has been actively involved in financial sector work in Hungary, Mongolia, Tunisia, Morocco, Barbados, Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina, Paraguay, Guatemala and El Salvador. From 1982 to 1998 he worked at the Bank of Italy, where he has held the positions of Manager in the Supervision Department and of Head of the Financial Market Office in the Research Department. He has widely published on financial intermediaries and capital markets.

Sir K. Dwight Venner
Governor, Eastern Caribbean Central Bank

Sir K. Dwight Venner is currently Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, a position he has held since December 1989. Prior to this he served in the position of Director of Finance and Planning in the St Lucian Government between November 1981 and November 1989. An Economist by training,Sir Dwight has written and published extensively in the areas of Monetary and International Economics, Central Banking, Public Finance, Economic Development, Political Economy and International Economic Relations.  He has served on a number of boards, committees, and commissions in St Lucia and at the OECS, CARICOM, and international levels.  Among these are: Chairman - Air and Sea Ports Authority, St Lucia; Chairman – National Insurance Investment Committee, St Lucia; Director – National Commercial Bank, St Lucia; Director – St Lucia Development Bank. He recently launched a book entitled "A  Development  Agenda  for  the  Caribbean:   Financial  and Economic Approaches".

John Williamson
Senior Fellow, Peterson Institue for International Economics

John Williamson has been a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC, since its founding in 1981.  From 1996-99 he was on leave from the Institute to serve as Chief Economist for the South Asia Region of the World Bank.  In 2001 he served as Project Director for the UN High-Level Panel on Financing for Development (the Zedillo Panel). He has taught at the Universities of York (1963-68) and Warwick (1970-77) in England, the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (1978-1981) in Brazil, as a Visiting Professor at MIT (1967 and 1980), LSE (1992), and Princeton (1996), and as an Honorary Professor at the University of Warwick (since 1985).  He was an economic consultant to the UK Treasury in 1968-70, and an advisor to the International Monetary Fund in 1972-74, where he worked mainly on questions of international monetary reform related to the work of the Committee of Twenty.  His most recent major publications are (jointly edited with Pedro Pablo Kuczysnki) "After the Washington Consensus: Restarting Growth and Reform in Latin America"; (jointly edited with C. Fred Bergsten) "Dollar Adjustment: How Far? Against What?"; "Curbing the Boom-Bust Cycle: Stabilizing Capital Flows to Emerging Markets and Reference Rates and the International Monetary System".