ECOSOC Special Meeting on Inequality 30 March 2016€¦ ·  · 2016-03-29ECOSOC Special Meeting on Inequality 30 March 2016 Biographies of Participants Seventy-first President of

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ECOSOC Special Meeting on Inequality

30 March 2016

Biographies of Participants

Seventy-first President of the Economic and Social Council

Ambassador Oh Joon is the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Republic of Korea to the United

Nations in New York. He is serving as the President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) for a

one year term, starting July 24, 2015. In addition, he serves as the President of the Conference of States

Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). He also served as President of

the Security Council for May 2014 during the 2013-2014 term. Prior to this position, he was Ambassador

of the Republic of Korea in Singapore from 2010-13 and Deputy Minister for Multilateral and Global

Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Seoul from 2008-10. He has served as Ambassador

and Deputy Permanent Representative at the Permanent Mission of Korea to the United Nations in New

York, Chairman of the United Nations Disarmament Commission (UNDC), Deputy Chef de Cabinet for the

President of the General Assembly, Director-General for International Organizations at the Korean

Foreign Ministry, Special Adviser to the Foreign Minister (2007-08); Minister, ROK Embassy in Brazil

(2002-03); Deputy Director-General for Policy Planning (1999-2001); Counselor, ROK Embassy in

Malaysia (1997-99); and Director, United Nations Division (1995-97). The ROK Government awarded him

an Order of Service Merit twice, first the Order of Green Stripes in 1996 and the Order of Yellow Stripes in

2006.

Oh Joon

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Jan Eliasson

Deputy Secretary-General, United Nations

Mr. Eliasson was from 2007-2008 the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Darfur. Prior to this,

he served as President of the 60th session of the UN General Assembly. He was Sweden’s Ambassador to

the US from September 2000 until July 2005. In March 2006, Mr. Eliasson was appointed Foreign Minister

of Sweden and served in this capacity until the elections in the fall of 2006. Mr. Eliasson served from 1994

to 2000 as State Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He was Sweden’s Ambassador to the UN in New York 1988-

92, and also served as the Secretary-General’s Personal Representative for Iran/Iraq. Mr. Eliasson was the

first UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs. He has been a Visiting Professor at Uppsala

University and Gothenburg University in Sweden, lecturing on mediation, conflict resolution and UN

reform. He also served as a member of the UN Secretary-General’s Advocacy Group of the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs).

Rebecca Kadaga

Speaker of the Parliament, Uganda

The Rt. Hon. Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga is a Ugandan lawyer and politician who has been Speaker of the

Parliament of Uganda since 19 May 2011. She is the first female to be elected Speaker in the history of the

Parliament in Uganda. Between 1984 and 1988, she was in private law practice. From 1989 until 1996,

she served as the Member of Parliament for Kamuli District in the District Woman's Constituency, a

position which she still holds. She served as the Chairperson of the University Council for Mbarara

University between 1993 and 1996. In 1996, she served as Secretary General of the East African Women

Parliamentarians Association. From 1996 until 1998, Rebecca Kadaga was the Ugandan Minister of State

for Regional Cooperation (Africa and the Middle East). She then served as Minister of State for

Communication and Aviation from 1998 until 1999. Between 1999 and 2000 she was the Minister for

Parliamentary Affairs. She was elected Deputy Speaker of Parliament in 2001, a position that she held

until 19 May 2011, when she was elected Speaker of Parliament. Among her duties as speaker of the

Ugandan Parliament, she chairs the following parliamentary committees: the Appointments Committee,

the Parliamentary Commission and the Business Committee.

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Han Seung-soo

Former Prime Minister, Republic of Korea

Dr. Han Seung-soo has more than five decades of academic, political, and diplomatic experience. He was

Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea from 2008 to 2009 and the President of the fifty-sixth session of

the United Nations General Assembly from 2001 to 2002. Dr. Han was first elected to the National

Assembly in 1988, served as the Ambassador to the United States from 1993 to 1994, and as Minister of

Foreign Affairs from 2001 to 2002.

Dr. Han has previously also served as the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Climate Change, a

member of the Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation, and Chair of the High-level

Experts and Leaders Panel on Water and Disasters. In 2013, he was appointed as the Special Envoy for

Disaster Risk Reduction and Water.

Ali Velshi

Journalist and television host, Al Jazeera America

Mr. Velshi’s career started when he joined the ‘CFTO’ channel in Toronto as a General Assignment

Reporter. In 1999, he worked for a business channel now known as BNN-Business News Network. He

travelled to the United States in 2001, and started working with ‘CNNfn’ then the ‘CNN’ network as a host

and reporter. He covered among others the bombing of the ‘Marriott Hotel’ in Islamabad, the striking of

the destructive hurricane ‘Gustav and the 2008 financial crisis. He left ‘CNN’ and started working for the

newly launched television channel ‘Al Jazeera America’, in 2013. Here, he is the anchor of the show titled

‘Real Money with Ali Velshi’.

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Bernard-Henri Lévy

French philosopher, journalist, filmmaker, and public intellectual

In 1968 Mr. Lévy entered the École Normale Supérieure, where he studied under Jacques

Derrida and Louis Althusser. He published books on several political, strategic and military situations

including a Report to the President as an envoy of President Jacques Chirac in 2002. In the 1970s Mr. Lévy

joined André Glucksmann and others in a loose-knit group that became known as the Nouveaux

Philosophes (New Philosophers). They launched a severe critique of French Marxism and socialism. His

principal contribution to that movement was La Barbarie à visage humain (1977; “Barbarism with a

Human Face”). Mr. Lévy made perhaps the clearest statement of his own philosophy in Le Testament de

Dieu (1979; The Testament of God), in which he argued for a humanistic ethics based on a biblical

monotheism despite the fact that he was not a believer. He delivered the keynote speech at the informal

meeting of the General Assembly on the rise of anti-Semitism.

Thomas Pogge

Director, Global Justice Program, Leitner Professor

Having received his PhD in philosophy from Harvard, Thomas Pogge has published widely on Kant and on

moral and political philosophy, including various books on Rawls and global justice. Besides his

appointment at CAPPE, he is Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University,

Research Director at the Oslo University Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature (CSMN), and Adjunct

Professor of Political Philosophy at the Centre for Professional Ethics of the University of Central

Lancashire. With support from the Australian Research Council, the UK-based BUPA Foundation and the

European Commission (7th Framework) he currently heads a team effort towards developing a

complement to the pharmaceutical patent regime that would improve access to advanced medicines for

the poor worldwide (www.healthimpactfund.org) and toward developing better indices of poverty and

gender equity.

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Myrna Cunningham Kain

Activist, Former Chairperson of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous

Issues (Nicaragua)

After her Master’s Degree in Primary Education, Dr. Cunningham returned to her community of origin to

work as a teacher. She then returned to school to study medicine and surgery at the National Autonomous

University of Nicaragua, becoming the first Miskita woman doctor. From 1992-2004 Dr. Cunningham was

the founding director of the University of the Autonomous Regions of the Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast

URACCAN, one of the first Latin American experiences of indigenous, intercultural and gender-sensitive

higher education. It has served as inspiration for many indigenous people of the continent. She has also

been a member of the Board of the Global Fund for Women and advised the Alliance of Indigenous

Women and International Indigenous Women’s Forum (FIMI). From 2011-2013, she served as Chair of

the Permanent UN Forum on Indigenous Issues. In 2014, she was appointed as Special Ambassador of

FAO for the International Year of Family Farming extending her position as Ambassador to 2016. She was

Adviser to the President of the General Assembly of the UN World Conference of Indigenous People of the

UN in 2014. Dr. Cunningham is currently a member of the Board of Association for Women’s Rights in

Development (AWID), The Hunger Project, and a Trust Fund for Indigenous People, Tropical Agricultural

Research and the Higher Education Center (CATIE), the Indigenous Peoples Assistance Facility (IPAF).

She is currently First Vice President of the Board of the Fund for the Development of Indigenous People of

Latin America and the Caribbean.

Marc Fleurbaey

Robert E. Kuenne Professor in Economics and Humanistic Studies, Professor of Public

Affairs and the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University

Marc Fleurbaey has been an economist at INSEE (Paris), a professor of economics at the Universities of

Cergy-Pontoise and Pau (France), and a research director at the National Center for Scientific Research

(CNRS) in Paris. He has also been a Lachmann Fellow and a visiting professor at the London School of

Economics, a research associate at the Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE, Louvain-

la-Neuve) and the Institute for Public Economics (IDEP, Marseilles), and a visiting researcher at Oxford.

He is a former editor of the journal Economics and Philosophy and as of 2012 is the coordinating editor of

Social Choice and Welfare. He is the author of Fairness, Responsibility, and Welfare (2008), a co-author

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of Beyond GDP (with Didier Blanchet, 2013), A Theory of Fairness and Social Welfare (with François

Maniquet, 2011), and the coeditor of several books, including Justice, Political Liberalism, and

Utilitarianism: Themes from Harsanyi and Rawls (with Maurice Salles and John Weymark, 2008). His

research on normative and public economics and theories of distributive justice has focused in particular

on the analysis of equality of opportunity and responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism and on seeking

solutions to famous impossibilities of social choice theory.

David Nabarro

Special Adviser of the UN Secretary-General on 2030 Agenda for Sustainable

Development

Dr. Nabarro has more than 30 years of experience in public health, nutrition and development work at the

national, regional and global levels, and has held positions in non-governmental organizations,

universities, national governments and the United Nations system. Since September 2014, he has served

as Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Ebola. From 2005 to 2014 he was Senior Coordinator for

Avian and Pandemic Influenza. From 2011 to 2015, he served as Coordinator of the Movement to Scale

Up Nutrition, and since 2009 he has been the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Food

Security and Nutrition, a position he will continue to hold. Dr. Nabarro previously served as Chief Health

and Population Adviser to the United Kingdom Overseas Development Administration, and in 1997, he

became Director of Human Development in the Department for International Development.

Denise Dresser

Professor of political science, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México

Dr. Dresser has taught comparative politics, political economy, and Mexican politics at ITAM since 1991.

In May of 2010, she was awarded the National Journalism Prize (Premio Nacional de Periodismo). She is a

prolific writer and a frequent commentator on Mexican politics in the U.S. and Canadian media. She has

also worked as a consultant to the United Nations Development Program, Barings Research and the Bank

of Montreal. Dr. Dresser has been a member of the Research Council of the Forum for Democratic Studies,

National Endowment for Democracy, the World Academy of Arts and Science, the advisory board of

Trans-National Research Corporation, the editorial board of the Latin American Research Review, the

advisory board of Human Rights Watch and others. She is currently on the board of the Human Rights

Commission for Mexico City. Dr. Dresser earned her Ph.D. in Politics at Princeton University, where she

was a Fulbright Scholar. She has received research grants from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller

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Foundation, the Institute for the Study of World Politics, the Center for International Studies at Princeton

University, and the Organization of American States. In 1993 she was given the Junior Third World

Scholar award by the International Studies Association and has held numerous Senior university

fellowships.

Jonathan D. Ostry

Deputy Director of the Research Department (RES), International Monetary Fund

Mr. Ostry’s recent responsibilities include leading staff teams on: IMF-FSB Early Warning Exercises on

global systemic macrofinancial risks; vulnerabilities exercises for advanced and emerging market

countries; multilateral exchange rate surveillance; international financial architecture and reform of the

IMF’s lending toolkit; capital account management (capital controls and prudential tools to manage

capital inflows) and financial globalization issues; fiscal sustainability issues; and the nexus between

income inequality and economic growth. Past positions include leading the division that produces the

IMF’s flagship multilateral surveillance publication, the World Economic Outlook, and leading country

teams on Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore. Mr. Ostry is the author/editor of a number of

books on international macro policy issues, and numerous articles in scholarly journals. His work on

inequality and unsustainable growth has been widely cited, including by President Barack Obama.

Paolo dos Santos

Assistant Professor of Economics, the New School for Social Research

Mr. dos Santos received his PhD in economics from the University of London. His research involves

Classical Political Economy; Banking and Monetary Theory; and the role of Finance in Economic

Development. Much of his current work enquires into the distinctive social and macroeconomic content

of contemporary financial practices and relations. He is interested in methodological issues in economic

analysis, including the appropriate use and interpretation of mathematical formalisms.

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Michael Elliott

President and Chief Executive Officer, ONE, United Kingdom

Michael Elliott is the President and Chief Executive Officer of ONE, the global campaigning and advocacy

organization fighting extreme poverty and preventable disease. Prior to joining ONE in 2011, Elliott had a

career in the media. He served as editor of TIME International and Newsweek International, and as

Political Editor and Washington Bureau Chief of The Economist, where he was the founding author of the

“Bagehot” and “Lexington” columns. Elliott was a columnist on the global economy for Fortune magazine,

and has written and presented many television documentaries that have been broadcast all over the

world. He is the author of four books. Prior to his career in journalism, he was a member of the Central

Policy Review Staff in Britain’s Cabinet Office, and before that, spent eight years teaching in universities in

the US and UK, ending his academic career with a tenured position at the London School of Economics.

Elliott sits on a number of official advisory committees and boards, including those of InterAction, the

International Center for Journalists, and Beyond Sport. He has served as vice-chair and chair of the World

Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Poverty and Sustainable Development.

José Graziano da Silva

Director-General, Food and Agriculture Organisation

In 2001 Mr. da Silva led the team that designed Brazil’s "Zero Hunger" (Fome Zero) programme. In 2003,

he was charged with its implementation by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who named him Special

Minister of Food Security and the Fight against Hunger. Zero Hunger has helped lift millions out of hunger

and extreme poverty by emphasizing social inclusion and linking policies that address macro-economic,

social, and productive challenges. Graziano da Silva joined FAO in 2006 as the head of the Regional Office

for Latin America and the Caribbean. Serving as Regional Representative until 2011, he actively

supported the “Hunger-Free Latin America and the Caribbean Initiative” - which made the region the first

in the world to commit to the total eradication of hunger by 2025 - and highlighted the importance of

family farming, rural development, and strengthening rural institutions to guarantee food security.

Graziano da Silva was elected Director-General of FAO on 26 June 2011 and took up office on 1 January

2012. He has emphasized the importance of addressing the connections between social, economic, and

environmental factors that can lead to hunger and malnutrition. He was re-elected for a second 4 year-

term (1 August 2015 to 31 July 2019) during FAO's 39th Conference.

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Jeffrey Sachs

Director, SDSN, and Director, The Earth Institute, Columbia University, USA

Jeffrey D. Sachs serves as Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, and Quetelet Professor of

Sustainable Development as well as of Health Policy and Management. He is Special Advisor to United

Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Sustainable Development Goals, having held a similar

position under former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He is co-founder and Chief Strategist of

Millennium Promise Alliance, and is director of the Millennium Villages Project. From 2002 to 2006, he

was director of the United Nations Millennium Project's work on the Millennium Development Goals. He

is director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Since 2010 he also served as a

commissioner for the Broadband Commission for Digital Development. Since 1995, he is also a member of

the International Advisory Council of the Center for Social and Economic Research (CASE). From 1995 to

1999 he was director of the Harvard Institute for International Development at the Kennedy School of

Government.

Rebeca Grynspan

Secretary-General, Ibero-American Secretariat

Created in 2003 and headquartered in Madrid, the Ibero-American Secretariat brings together the Heads of

State and Government of Latin America, Spain, Portugal, and Andorra and other government representatives

and civil society in order to advance economic, social, and cultural development among the 22 countries of

Latin America plus Spain, Portugal, and Andorra. Before joining the United Nations, Ms. Grynspan was

Vice-President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998. She also served as Housing Minister, Coordinating

Minister of Economy, Coordinating Minister of Social Affairs, and Vice-Minister of Finance. Ms. Grynspan

joined UNDP in 2006 as the Assistant-Secretary-General and Regional Director for Latin America and the

Caribbean and was appointed Associate Administrator in 2010. Previously, she was Director of the

Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Sub-regional Headquarters in

Mexico, where she also served as Co-Chair of the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Executive

Board.

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Gilbert Houngbo

Deputy Director General for Field Operations and Partnerships, International Labour

Prior to his appointment, from September 2008 to July 2012, Mr. Houngbo was the Prime Minister of

Togo. In this capacity he led the government towards substantial improvements in all areas namely:

achievement towards the MDGs, rule of law, civil liberties, social cohesion, economic reforms including

the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) program of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), good

governance, improving business climate, agriculture and rural development and shared economic

growth.

Other specific areas of expertise include Strategic operational planning and management, financial and

human resource management.

Jan Walliser

Vice President, World Bank Global Practices: Finance & Markets, Governance,

Macroeconomics & Fiscal Management, Poverty, and Trade & Competitiveness

Mr. Walliser is charged with ensuring high-quality lending and analytical and advisory services aligned

with country demand. Prior to his current appointment, he was Director of Strategy and Operations in the

Bank’s Africa Region supporting the Regional Vice President in providing strategic leadership and

operational support. Previously, he managed a team of economists which advised governments on

macroeconomic policies and supported debt relief for several fragile states. He also provided advice to

staff and senior management on issues related to budget support, aid effectiveness and conditionality in

one of the World Bank’s central units during 2004-08. Before joining the World Bank in 2002, he was an

economist at the International Monetary Fund and a Principal Analyst at the U.S. Congressional Budget

Office where he focused on the analysis of pension reform and tax reform.

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Marcos Bonturi

OECD Director for Global Relations

Mr. Bonturi was previously Deputy Chief of Staff of the Secretary-General of the OECD. In this position, he

supported the OSG in preparing tailor-made policy advice ("Better Policies” brochures) for several

Member and non-Member countries. Mr. Bonturi joined the OECD in 1990. He started on trade and

development issues, including at the Development Centre, the Trade Directorate and the Economics

Department. He then worked on a series of structural reform issues, including as a Senior Economist in

the Office of the Chief Economist. At the turn of the century, Mr. Bonturi started assuming increasing

management responsibilities, first as advisor in the Secretary-General’s office and then as Head of

Division in both the Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry (STI) and the Public Governance

and Territorial Development Directorate (GOV). Prior to joining the OECD, Mr. Bonturi was an economist

in the Social and Economic Development Department of the Inter-American Development Bank for three

years, where he worked on Latin American trade and development policies.