Harvard Center for International Development

CID Student Ambassador Alexandra Gonzalez interviews Miguel Angel Santos, Adjunct Professor in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School and Senior Research Fellow, Center for International Development at Harvard University. Miguel Angel talks about CID's research initiative aimed at exploring export diversification opportunities and understanding the potential binding constraints that Panama can run into in the process of shifting gears towards a sustainable economic growth.

More info available on:

--> www.cid.harvard.edu

--> www,growthlab.cid.harvard.edu/panama

About Miguel Angel Santos: Miguel Angel Santos is an Adjunct Professor in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for International Development (CID) at Harvard University. At CID, he has been involved in various research projects aimed at helping governments to rethink their development strategies, both at the national and sub-national levels. Since he joined CID in August 2014, he has been involved in projects at the national level in Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela, and at the sub-national level in Mexico in the states of Chiapas, Baja California, Tabasco and Campeche; and the city of Hermosillo at Sonora state. He has also performed as project manager in the projects leading to the build-up of the Mexican Atlas of Economic Complexity, and the Peruvian Atlas of Economic Complexity.

Before joining the field of international development, Miguel worked for ten years in corporate finance and business development in Latin America, performing as Director of Finance for the Cisneros Group of Companies (1997-2003), Head of Corporate Finance for Mercantil Servicios Financieros (2005-2007), and Business Vice-President for Sony Pictures and Entertainment Latin America (2008-2009). At that point, he decided to switch tracks and get involved in development economics.

He holds two Master of Science degrees in International Finance and Trade (2011) and Economics (2012) from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, a Master in Public Administration from Harvard University (2014), and a Ph.D. in Economics at Universidad de Barcelona (2016). He was the head of the Macroeconomic Policy Team for presidential candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski in the Venezuelan elections of 2012.

CID Student Ambassador Emily Ausubel interviews Todd Moss, Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development and Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. Todd talks about the future of US Development Policy under the Trump administration, about the government’s new priorities and how they can impact global development programs.

Interview recorded on December 1st, 2017

Visit www.cid.harvard.edu for more information about CID's research and events.

About Todd Moss:

Todd Moss is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development where his research focuses on US-Africa relations, energy policy, and private investment. Moss is also a nonresident scholar at the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute and an adjunct professor at Georgetown.

He served as COO/VP at the Center from 2009-2016. Moss is currently working on electrification in Africa, cash transfers in new oil economies, and ideas for upgrading US development finance tools. In the past he led CGD’s work on Nigerian debt, reconstruction in Zimbabwe, the future of the World Bank’s soft loan IDA, and the African Development Bank. Moss served as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of African Affairs at the U.S. Department of State 2007-2008 while on leave from CGD.

Previously, he has been a Lecturer at the London School of Economics (LSE) and worked at the World Bank, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and the Overseas Development Council. Moss is the author of numerous articles and books, including African Development: Making Sense of the Issues and Actors (2011) and Oil to Cash: Fighting the Resource Curse with Cash Transfers (2015).

Moss also writes an international thriller series for Penguin’s Putnam Books about a State Department crisis manager including The Golden Hour (2014), Minute Zero (2015), Ghosts of Havana (2016), and The Shadow List (forthcoming 2017).

CID Student Ambassador Abeela Latif interviews Niharika Singh, Ph.D. Student Affiiate, and Zainab Qureshi, Senior Program Manager, both at Harvard University's Evidence for Policy Design Program.

Niha and Zainab talk about a decade-long research project lead by the Evidence for Policy Design Program that aims at understanding Pakistan’s education landscape and examine how to catalyze innovation in the country’s education ecosystem.

www.cid.harvard.edu / Interview recorded on November 3rd, 2017.

About the interviewees:

Niharika Singh is a PhD candidate in Public Policy at Harvard University and co-principal investigator on a LEAPS study examining the effects of providing unconditional cash grants to rural low cost private schools in Pakistan. Her research interests span a range of topics in development and labor economics. She received her BA in Economics from McGill University and worked as a research assistant in India and the U.S. prior to graduate school.

Zainab Qureshi is the LEAPS Senior Program Manager at EPoD, overseeing implementation of Education and policy research in Pakistan. She has previously worked at various organizations across the Education sector in Pakistan, implementing low cost Education delivery programs and developing an alternate model of education for low income schools. She holds a Master’s in Education (Ed.M.) from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a BA in Economics and International Development from McGill University.

CID Student Ambassador Patrick Hannahan interviews Victoria White, Managing Director of Global Advisory Solutions at Accion. Victoria talks about how Accion and its partners are harnessing key digital trends to make quality financial service more accessible and cost effective in developing countries.

Interview recorded on October 27, 2017.

// cid.harvard.edu //

About the interviewee: Victoria White has worked with Accion since 2000. She serves as a member of the senior management team and holds responsibility for overseeing Accion’s advisory support to its partners as Managing Director, Global Advisory Solutions. She also serves as a board director for a number of these institutions. Previously, Ms. White was Accion’s Regional Head for Asia and supported Accion’s partners in Africa in such areas as strategic planning, bank downscaling, institutional transformation planning, and financial management.

Ms. White is co-author of Transforming Microfinance Institutions: Providing Full Financial Services to the Poor and Institutional Metamorphosis: Transformation of Microfinance NGOs into Regulated Financial Institutions, a contributing author to Commercialization of Microfinance: Balancing Business and Development, and author of A Case Study in Transformation: The Creation of Uganda Microfinance Limited.

Before working with Accion, Ms. White was a senior advisor for Calmeadow’s international operations. She also worked as a program analyst for USAID’s Office of Microenterprise Development.

CID Student Ambassador Emily Ausubel interviews Andrew Mitchell, British MP and Former Secretary of State for International Development. Mr. Mitchell talks about his extensive experience in International Development and discusses the challenges and opportunities of a global approach to pressing development issues.

www.cid.harvard.edu / Interview recorded on October 20th, 2017.

About the speaker: Rt Hon. Andrew Mitchell is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sutton Coldfield since 2001. He was the MP for Gedling from 1987 to 1997. He served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for International Development from 2010 to 2012.

Mitchell was elected President of the Cambridge Union in 1978. Before university, he served for several months as a United Nations military peacekeeper in Cyprus. He has extensive pre-government experience of the developing world, and is the founder of Project Umubano, a Conservative Party social action project in Rwanda and Sierra Leone in central and west Africa, launched in 2007.

Mitchell was returned as MP for Sutton Coldfield at the 2017 general election, with a reduced majority.

Alexandra Gonzalez, CID student ambassador, interviews Douglas Barrios and Ricardo Villasmil research fellows at CID. Douglas and Ricardo shed some light on Venezuela's ongoing socioeconomic and political crisis and present an agenda for democratic governance and socioeconomic recovery.

Interview recorded on October 13th, 2017.

More about CID's project on Venezuela: https://growthlab.cid.harvard.edu/venezuela

About the speakers:

Douglas Barrios a Growth Lab Fellow at the Center for International Development at Harvard University. Before joining CID he worked in McKinsey’s Bogotá office as a Public Sector Specialist where he served public and social sector organizations throughout Latin America in a broad set of topics ranging from ICT promotion strategies to education policy design. Other previous experience include serving as an external policy adviser for local governments as well as political campaigns in Venezuela. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics from the Universidad Metropolitana (Venezuela) and a Masters in Public Administration and International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School (MPA-ID 2012). His research interests are focused on urban dynamics, natural resource extraction and rent management, behavioral economics and the political economics behind policy design.

Ricardo Villasmil is a Research Fellow at the Center for International Development at Harvard University. Before joining CID, he worked in private consulting in Venezuela managing projects on a wide range of strategic and organizational issues for over a decade. His interests in development economics led him to the Andrés Bello Catholic University and to the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (IESA), where he has been teaching courses in development and macroeconomics for the past fifteen years. Ricardo's involvement in public policy dates back to 1998, when he joined Venezuela’s Congressional Budget Office and the Ministry of Finance two years later. His interests in the practice of development prompted him to take advisory roles for Teodoro Petkoff in the 2006 runoff presidential election, for the democratic coalition between 2006 and 2012 and for presidential candidate Henrique Capriles as Head of his Public Policy Team in 2012. Ricardo holds a Master in Public Policy from IESA, a Master in Public Administration from Harvard University and a PhD in Economics from Texas A&M University.

Alexandra Gonzalez, estudiante embajadora del Centro para Desarrollo Internacional de Harvard entrevista a Douglas Barrios y Ricardo Villasmil, investigadores en el Centro.

Douglas y Ricardo hablan sobre la crisis socioeconómica en Venezuela, el reto de buscar datos para llevar a cabo el proyecto de investigación en el país y presentan propuestas para la recuperación económica de Venezuela.

Entrevista grabada el 13 de octubre del 2017.

https://growthlab.cid.harvard.edu/venezuela

Sobre los entrevistados:

Douglas Barrios es investigador en el Centro para el Desarrollo Internacional de la Universidad de Harvard. Antes de unirse a CID, trabajó en McKinsey Colombia como especialista del sector público, donde prestó servicios a organizaciones de sectores público y social de toda América Latina en una amplia gama de temas, desde estrategias de promoción de TIC hasta diseño de políticas educativas. Otra experiencia previa incluye servir como asesor de política externa para gobiernos locales y campañas políticas en Venezuela. Posee una Licenciatura en Economía de la Universidad Metropolitana (Venezuela) y una Maestría en Administración Pública y Desarrollo Internacional en la Harvard Kennedy School (MPA-ID 2012). Sus intereses de investigación se centran en la dinámica urbana, la extracción de recursos naturales y la gestión de alquileres, la economía comportamental y la economía política detrás de la elaboración de políticas públicas.

Ricardo Villasmil es investigador en el Centro para el Desarrollo Internacional de la Universidad de Harvard. Antes de unirse a CID, trabajó en consultoría privada en Venezuela administrando proyectos en una amplia gama de cuestiones estratégicas y organizativas durante más de una década. Sus intereses en economía para el desarrollo lo llevaron a la Universidad Católica Andrés Bello y al Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (IESA), donde ha impartido cursos de desarrollo y macroeconomía durante los últimos quince años. La participación de Ricardo en la política pública se remonta a 1998, cuando se unió a la Oficina de Presupuesto del Congreso de Venezuela y al Ministerio de Finanzas dos años más tarde. Sus intereses en la práctica del desarrollo lo impulsaron a desempeñar funciones de asesor para Teodoro Petkoff en las elecciones presidenciales de segunda vuelta de 2006, para la coalición democrática entre 2006 y 2012 y para el candidato presidencial Henrique Capriles como Jefe de su Equipo de Políticas Públicas en 2012. Ricardo posee una Maestría en Políticas Públicas de IESA, una Maestría en Administración Pública de la Universidad de Harvard y un Doctorado en Economía de la Universidad de Texas A & M.

CID Student Ambassador Abeela Latif interviews Dr. Yasuyuki Sawada, Chief Economist and Chief Spokesperson on economic & development trends at the Asian Development Bank on the latest Economic Prospects published by the bank.

www.cid.harvard.edu

About the Interviewee: About the Speaker: Yasuyuki Sawada is the chief spokesperson for ADB on economic and development trends, and leads the Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department, which publishes ADB’s flagship knowledge products. Dr. Sawada previously served as a Professor in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo. He also performed research at a variety of institutions, such as the Japan International Cooperation Agency Research Institute; the World Bank; Economic Research Institute of ASEAN and East Asia; Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies; Pakistan Institute of Development Economics; International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines; International Water Management Institute in Sri Lanka; Research Institute of Economy, Trade, and Industry in Japan; and Japan Society of Promotion of Science, where he led a number of large-scale development policy evaluation projects in Asia and other developing countries. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed research articles on diversified topics pertaining to Asia and other developing countries ranging from macro development issues, such as long-term economic growth and structural change, sovereign debt sustainability, foreign aid, trade, ageing and social security, and natural and man-made disasters to micro issues of poverty, education, infrastructure, microenterprises, microfinance, health, and disabilities.

Interview recorded on October 11th, 2017.

Alexandra Gonzalez, CID Student Ambassador, interviews María Latorre, member of the European Commission's group of experts in International Trade and Professor at Universidad Complutense de Madrid on her recent study regarding the economic impact of Brexit for the UK and the EU.

//www.cid.harvard.edu//

About the Speaker: María C. Latorre is currently a member of the group of experts in international trade of the European Commission. She has also conducted other consulting projects for the World Bank and the Spanish Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness. Maria has been a Research Scholar at the Center for International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School and at Real Colegio Complutense at Harvard University. She has held research visiting positions in the US International Trade Commission, the CEPII and the University of Nottingham. Her papers have been published in academic journals such as World Development, Journal of Policy Modeling, Economic Modelling and China Economic Review among others.

Interview recorded on September 25, 2017.

CID Student Ambassador Patrick Hannahan interviews Kusi Hornberger, Senior Project Manager at Dalberg Global Development Advisors on the potential regions and sectors for impact investing, about striking a balance between social and capital returns and on how to break into the impact investment market.

www.cid.harvard.edu

About the speaker: Kusi Hornberger is a Senior Project Manager in the Washington, DC office of Dalberg Global Development Advisors. Kusi has 10+ years of project management, investment and strategy experience working with a range of public, private, and non-profit clients, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, ECOM Agroindustrial Corp., World Bank Group, Starbucks, Experian and USAID.

Prior to joining Dalberg, Kusi was Vice President of Investment Research & Strategy at Global Partnerships where he oversaw the investment strategy and portfolio including analysis of investment opportunities in agriculture cooperatives, artisan retailers, cookstove and solar lamp manufacturers and distributors, private health clinics as well as integrated microfinance institutions across Central/South America and East Africa. He was also the in-house expert on agriculture finance, leading the investment appraisal and relationships for portfolio of investments in >40 rural and agriculture focused social enterprises across range of commodity value chains including coffee, cocoa, fresh vegetables and nuts. Further he was responsible for managing GP’s relationship with the Council for Smallholder Agriculture Finance (CSAF), served as an advisor to the Finance Alliance for Sustainable Trade (FAST) and Agros International and presented at numerous conferences (Cracking the Nut, FLII, SCAA, SOCAP, etc.) about GP’s approach to investing in agriculture value chains.

Interview recorded on September 29th, 2017.