Panels - CSAE Conference 2022

Dr. Frannie Léautier, Senior Partner at SouthBridge Group and CEO of SouthBridge Investments, is a highly experienced and well-known finance and development expert, with long-standing global experience leading and transforming organisations in the private, public and non-for-profit spheres. She has held leadership roles at The Trade and Development Bank (TDB) Group, including Vice Chair of the Board, Special Advisor to the President before becoming TDB’s first Chief Operating Officer. She also led the Asset Management business of TDB, including the recent launch of a unique product for trade finance in Africa.

Admassu Tadesse is an international banker and business leader with experience at board and executive-levels globally and in Africa. Since he joined the Bank in 2012, Mr. Tadesse has launched new business operations, centres of excellence in risk management and treasury as well as critical institutional reforms which have led TDB to transform its ownership, geographical scope and organizational structure, achieve investment-grade ratings, grow its assets from USD 1bn to about USD 8bn, and drive higher impact in the 22 Member States it serves. Previously, he has served as Executive Vice President at the Development Bank of Southern Africa, and senior advisor and specialist with various funds and international organizations globally. Mr. Tadesse serves on various boards and industry bodies, including the US Corporate Council on Africa and is a recipient of several industry honors and awards notably, African Banker of the Year and African Business Leader of the Year.

Christopher Woodruff is Professor of Development Economics and a Fellow at Wolfson College. He is the Scientific Coordinator for the DFID – CEPR joint research venture on Private Enterprise Development in Low Income Countries (PEDL) and directs the Firm Capabilities group at the International Growth Centre. In addition to his position at Oxford, Professor Woodruff is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), and a Senior Fellow of the Bureau of Research on Economic Analysis and Development (BREAD), a Research Fellow at the Center for Competitive Advantage and the Global Economy (CAGE) and the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).

Dr. Mwangangi believes in the crucial and catalytic role that health plays in the social and economic development of Kenya, and it is with this affirmation that she put down her stethoscope and pursued a master’s degree in Health Economics and Policy at the University of Adelaide in South Australia in 2015. Dr. Mwangangi, contributed to the design, and implementation of the Universal Health Coverage Pilot program, that form part of the Presidential Big Four Agenda. Having previously worked as the head of the Health Financing Division in the Ministry of Health, her focus in the design of the UHC Program has centered on the health financing architecture of the program and its alignment to intergovernmental service delivery priorities. With an indulgence for analytics and design thinking, Mercy has also contributed to the development of an array of policy frameworks in the health sector, including the Primary Health Care Strategy. She also served as the joint secretary of the Health Benefits Advisory Panel that was commissioned with the design of the Essential Health Benefit Package for Kenya.

Sir Andrew is Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Oxford and an honorary consultant paediatrician at Oxford Children’s Hospital and Fellow of St Cross College. He received a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2021 for services to Public Health, especially in the pandemic. His research includes the design, development and clinical evaluation of vaccines in UK, Asia, Africa and Latin America, including those for COVID-19, typhoid, meningococcus, Haemophilus influenzae type b, pneumococcus, plague, pertussis, influenza, rabies, coronavirus and Ebola, and leads studies using a human challenge model of paratyphoid and typhoid. He was the chief investigator for the clinical trials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in 2020, which led to authorisation of the vaccine for use in more than 175 countries with over 2.5 billion doses distributed by the end of 2021

David has recently joined Gavi in a new role as Director Development Finance and is responsible for managing Gavi’s relationship with Multilateral Development Banks and International Financial Institutions. He also represents Gavi on the G20’s Joint Health and Finance Taskforce. Immediately prior to joining Gavi, David worked at the World Bank Group where he was an Alternate Executive Director representing the UK at Board level. In his 5 years at the Bank he played a role in the historic capital increase agreed in 2018 and helpful oversee the Bank Group’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

David spent the first decade of his career working in a range of domestic and international facing jobs in the UK government, working predominantly at the UK Treasury but also in the Cabinet Office and the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Stefan Dercon is Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies, and a Professorial Fellow of Jesus College. He is also Professor of Economic Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government and the Economics Department. He has worked extensively as a policy advisor, providing strategic economic and development advice, and promoting the use of evidence in decision making, including as Chief Economist of the UK Department of International Development 2011-2017. His latest book, Gambling on Development: Why some countries win and others lose will be published in May 2022. It draws on his academic research as well as his policy experience across three decades and 40-odd countries, exploring why some countries have managed to settle on elite bargains favouring growth and development, and others did not.

Abebe Shimeles, an Ethiopian national, is currently Director of Research at African Economic Research Consortium. Abebe received a PhD in Economics from Goteborg University, MA, Delhi School of Economics and BA from Addis Ababa University. He started his research career at the AERC in the mid-1990s and continued to serve as a Resource Person since 2009. He has over 30 years of professional experience in policy research working for academia, NGO (Action Aid), and other international organizations (United Nations Economic Commission for Africa; World Bank and African Development Bank) with a track record of publications in peer reviewed journals, policy dialogue, and impacting policy through research. His recent position at the African Development Bank was Division Manager of the Macroeconomic Policy, Forecasting and Research department.

Nangamso Mtsatse is the CEO of Funda Wande (a not-for-profit organization that aims to equip teachers to teach reading-for-meaning and calculating-with-confidence in South Africa). Nangamso is also completing her PhD in Education Policy at Stellenbosch University and is an affiliated researcher at the Research on Socioeconomic Policy (RESEP) group. She has published her research in a number of accredited journals. In January 2019 she was also selected by the International Literacy Association (ILA) as one of the Top 30 Under 30 researchers around the world. Nangamso has contributed to a number of important initiatives in the South Africa literacy sphere.

Ken Opalo is a researcher on the RISE Tanzania team and an assistant professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. His research interests include the political economy of public policy and development; legislative development; and electoral politics in emerging democracies. Ken’s current book project examines the evolution of legislatures in emerging democracies, with a focus on explaining the observed variation in the institutionalization and strength of African legislatures.

Leonard Wantchekon is Principal Investigator for the RISE Nigeria team and a professor of politics and associated faculty in economics at Princeton University. He has research interests in the economics of education, clientelism and redistributive politics, the resource curse, and the long-term social impact of historical events. He is the author of numerous publications in leading academic journals, such as American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and the American Political Science Review. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and founded the Institute for Empirical Research in Political Economy and the African School of Economics (ASE) in Benin in January 2004 and September 2014, respectively.

Aneth Komba is a researcher on the RISE Tanzania team, a senior lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam and Director-General of the Tanzania Institute of Education. She holds a Bachelor of Science (Education) (Hons.) and a Master of Arts (Education) from the University of Dar es Salaam, and a PhD from the University of Bath, where she specialized in educational leadership, management and policy studies. She lectures in educational management and school administration; policy planning and administration; human resource management in educational organizations; and qualitative research methodology.

Tassew Woldehanna is the Principal Investigator and Research Team Lead for the RISE Ethiopia team. He is the President of Addis Ababa University and Professor of Economics at the school. He obtained his PhD in Household Economics from Wageningen University, The Netherlands. He is a development economist mainly interested in fiscal incidence, child welfare and poverty, employment, micro and small-scale enterprise development, entrepreneurship and food security. He has published several book chapters and articles in peer reviewed journals in the area of poverty and education and health. He is also the Principal Investigator of Young Lives, an international study of childhood poverty following 12,000 children in four countries (Ethiopia, India, Vietnam and Peru).

Julius Atuhurra is a Research Fellow at the RISE Programme, based at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. He was previously regional coordinator for research on What Works in Education at Twaweza East Africa–a regional initiative in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda working on ensuring children learn and governments become more open and responsive to their citizens’ needs. He holds a PhD in development economics and an MA in public finance, both from Japan’s economics graduate school found in Tokyo, the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS).