Full Professor, Institute of Development Policy, University of Antwerp, Belgium
Senior Fellow, FERDI
He is a development economist with more than 30 years of experience in international development and a renowned scholar and expert in the overall nexus between macroeconomics and development finance, including the macroeconomics of foreign aid effectiveness and domestic resource mobilization, financial sector development and poverty reduction. He is also widely recognized as a leading expert in foreign aid effectiveness issues with a policy oriented influential published work in this area for many years. Other research interests include food security and nutrition, agricultural policies, poverty reduction and agricultural transformation, youth employment and the agricultural sector, primary commodity markets and natural resources, human capital development (with an emphasis on the economics of education & training) as well as international migration and urbanization and development.
Prior to joining the Institute of Development Policy of the University of Antwerp he was a Senior Research Fellow of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Director of IFPRI’s Nigeria Strategy Support Program, coordinating a large-scale research and capacity building program for IFPRI in Nigeria as well as managing the IFPRI Nigeria Office. Other appointments include Chief Economist of the Global Development Network (GDN) and based in GDN’s HQs in New Delhi for 6 years (having also served as an Acting GDN President for a short period in 2009); Senior Research Fellow and Project Director at the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER), based in Helsinki, Finland for 5 years; and prior to that on the Economics Faculties of the Universities of Oxford and Manchester where he taught for many years. He also taught as Visiting Professor at the Universities of Helsinki (Finland), CERDI-Auvergne (Clermont-Ferrand, France), and Peking University (Beijing). Current and past honorary appointments include Senior Fellow, Foundation for International Development Study and Research (Ferdi), Clermont-Ferrand, France (since 2010); Non-Resident Associate Fellow at the Centre of Regional Integration Studies of the United Nations University (UNU-CRIS), Bruges, Belgium (2010-2016); Visiting Research Fellow, Policy Research Department, the World Bank, Washington DC (June-Sept. 1996); Adjunct Professor of Economics in the Faculty of Economics & Business of the University of the South Pacific, Fiji (2010-2013); and External Research Associate at the Oxford Centre for the Analysis of the Resource Rich Economies (OxCarre) of the Department of Economics, University of Oxford, UK (2011-2015).
He is widely published in a broad range of research areas in international development and he is the author and co-author of more than 140 publications, including numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals (such as Economica, Oxford Economic Papers, Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, World Development, Journal of Development Studies, Agricultural Economics, Food Security, Review of Development Economics, Economic Modelling, Journal of Financial Stability, European Journal of Finance, Manchester School, Journal of International Affairs, Public Health Nutrition, PLoS ONE, Maternal and Child Nutrition and World Economy among many others) and 10 books. Books include Challenges of Urbanization: Perspectives from the Global South (Routledge, 2021; with K. Sridhar); Security and Development (Edward Elgar, 2011 – with contributions by leading scholars including Nobel Laureate Michael Spence); Foreign Aid for Development: Issues, Challenges and the New Agenda (Oxford University Press, 2010 – endorsements for this book are available here); Commodities, Governance and Economic Development under Globalization (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010; with M. Nissanke); Development Aid: A Fresh Look (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009; with M. McGillivray); Domestic Resource Mobilization and Financial Development (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); Financial Development, Institutions, Growth and Poverty Reduction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008; with B. Guha-Khasnobis); Development Finance in the Global Economy: The Road Ahead (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008; with T. Addison); Advancing Development: Core Themes in Global Economics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007; with A. F. Shorrocks – both in hardback and paperback, a bestseller in Palgrave Macmillan - with a Foreword by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen); and Commodity Supply Management by Producing Countries (Oxford University Press, 1997; with A. Maizels and R. Bacon). He holds a D.Phil. (PhD) in Economics from Oxford, an MSc in Development Economics (with distinction) also from Oxford, an MA in Economics and Econometrics from the University of London and a BSc in Economics from the Athens University in Economics.
