Keynote & Panels - CSAE Conference 2024

BIOGRAPHY FOR DR. OQUBAY
Arkebe Oqubay (PhD) is a distinguished scholar-practitioner. He holds the British Academy Global Professor position at SOAS University of London, leading pioneering research on the greening of Africa’s economic development. He is a former Senior Minister and has served as a Special Advisor to three successive Prime Ministers of Ethiopia. He has been at the centre of policymaking in Ethiopia for over thirty years. Arkebe successfully led bold reforms and played a key role in Ethiopia’s economic transformation at different levels of government. He has been recognised internationally for his innovative and strategic leadership role in Ethiopia’s economic transformation and for championing the country’s pioneering industrial development model, which is being replicated across many African countries. He is the former Mayor of Addis Ababa, recognised for transforming the city. He has led the boards of key public enterprises, including Ethiopian Airlines.

Dr Arkebe’s remarkable contributions have garnered recognition and accolades. In 2005, he was acclaimed as the African Best Mayor for his work transforming Addis Ababa, making him a finalist for World Mayor in 2006. He is the recipient of various awards, including the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star, bestowed upon him by the Emperor of Japan in recognition of his dedicated contributions to Africa’s industrialisation. He was also Africa’s sole candidate for the Director General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), unanimously endorsed by the African Union.

Dr Arkebe has championed Africa’s industrialisation and economic transformation, and his distinctive leadership perspective bridges his practical experiences and extended policy expertise with scholarly pursuits. Dr Arkebe currently gives policy advice to, and consults for, African governments and international organisations. The NewAfrican recognised Dr Arkebe as one of the 100 Most Influential Africans of 2016 and a “leading thinker on Africa’s strategic development” for his work on industrialisation and industrial policies. His authored, co-authored, and co-edited works with Oxford University Press include Made in Africa (2015), How Nations Learn (2019), China-Africa and an Economic Transformation (2019); African Economic Development: Evidence, Theory, and Policy (2020); The Oxford Handbook of Industrial Hubs and Economic Development (2020); and The Oxford Handbook of Industrial Policy (2020). Dr Arkebe is an ODI Distinguished Fellow and a UNU-WIDER Honorary Research Fellow. He is also a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, an Honorary Professor at the University of Cape Town, and a Distinguished Professor at Fudan University (Shanghai) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. He holds a PhD in Development Studies from SOAS, University of London.

BIOGRAPHY FOR PROFESSOR KHAN

Professor Adnan Khan is the Chief Economist and Director for Economics and Evaluation in the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). He is seconded from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where he is Professor in the School of Public Policy.

Adnan has focused his career on advancing the understanding of development economics, political economy, entrepreneurship, and public sector reform. He has taught courses at the London School of Economics on development economics, public organisations, and political economy. He has taught at Harvard Kennedy School and has also been an Academic Director at the School of Public Policy.

Adnan has used real-time, cutting-edge analytical work that feeds directly into policy.

He has also applied frontier research on real-world questions conducted through collaboration with policy partners to achieve policy and academic impact. Adnan co-chaired LSE-Oxford Commission on State Fragility, Growth and Development. He continued to work on the theme of fragile states through the follow-up Reducing Fragilities Initiative. He has published in journals on issues like promoting value-for-money in public procurement, building state capacity by motivating civil servants to perform better, and on promoting entrepreneurship and social protection.

STEFAN DERCON
Professor of Economic Policy, University of Oxford

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 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.

MIRIAM LAKER
Global Director of Research, Give Directly

Born and raised in Uganda, Miriam is a Medical Doctor and research scientist with over two decades of experience working in academia, international health, and development. In her current role as Director of Research, she oversees GiveDirectly’s experimental evaluations (including a portfolio of over 20 randomized control trials), working closely with independent researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of programs.

She is a part-time faculty member at the University of California, San Francisco, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and at the Makerere University School of Medicine’s Implementation Sciences Program, as well as an External Lecturer in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine HIV module.

Outside of GiveDirectly, she is a Board member of the CALP Network, St. John Paul II Schools (serving children in previously war-torn northern Uganda), Battery Operated Systems for Community Outreach Uganda, and Cyber Schools Technology Solutions, Uganda.

She was formerly the Head of the Strategic Development Committee of the board of a large non-profit urban community health NGO (Reach Out Mbuya: HIV and Community Health Initiative). Dr. Laker is also a co-founder of the African Women in Science Hub and an author of children’s books.

In addition to her medical degree from Makerere University in Kampala, Dr. Laker has a Masters in Tropical Medicine and International Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a Masters Advanced Studies with a focus on Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Clinical Research from the University of California, San Francisco - School of Medicine. Dr. Laker is a 2020-2021 Fellow of the Executive Leadership Foundation Program of the International Women's Forum, a joint program of INSEAD and Harvard Business Schools. In recognition of her achievements, Dr. Laker was named one of Uganda's top 40 women under the age of 40 in 2016.

SAM SOKO
Film Director of 'Free Money'

Sam Soko is a highly acclaimed documentary filmmaker based in Nairobi, Kenya, known for his captivating approach to socio-political storytelling. Collaborating with firebrand artists worldwide, his work has been showcased at prestigious festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, and TIFF, earning him numerous awards and Emmy, Peabody, and PGA nominations. A staunch defender of freedom of expression, Soko actively engages in global conversations on the importance of media in times of crisis. As the co-founder of LBx Africa, a production company in Kenya, he works tirelessly to bring unique African perspectives to global audiences by collaborating with both local and international filmmakers.

RADU BAN
Senior Program Officer, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Radu Ban is a Senior Program Officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, working on the Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) team. He manages a portfolio of research and evidence grants as well leading the internal WEE MLE work. Radu joined the foundation in 2011 and led the research and evidence work of the WSH program, before taking on the WEE role in 2022. Before joining the foundation, Radu worked at the World Bank’s Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) Initiative as an economist and coordinator of evaluation programs in Local Governance and Fragile States. He has a bachelor degree in Economics from Harvard University and PhD degree in Economics from the London School of Economics, under the supervision of Tim Besley.

MONICA LAMBON-QUAYEFIO
Researcher and Senior Lecturer, University of Ghana

Monica Lambon-Quayefio is an applied microeconomist whose research focuses on labour market issues in developing country contexts, demographic economic issues with a focus on, women and children’s welfare and digital innovations in agriculture. Her recent work has focused on unpaid care work, inequality of opportunity, digital finance in agriculture, informal pensions and labour market inefficiencies. She is a research fellow of the Transfer Project and of the Africa Centre of Excellence in Poverty and Inequality Research (ACEIR). She is also a non-resident fellow at the Centre for Effective Global Action (CEGA) and a JPAL invited researcher. She is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Economics, at the University of Ghana. She holds a doctorate degree in Economics from Clark University, Massachusetts in the USA where she received her master’s degree in economics.Her Bachelor of Arts degree was obtained in Economics with Mathematics from the University of Ghana.

BELINDA LEWIS
Chief Product Officer, Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator

Belinda is the Chief Product Officer for Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator - a not-for-profit social enterprise that works closely with partners from government to civil society to build African solutions for the global challenge of youth unemployment. She is responsible for the overall strategy, design and experience of the organisation's suite of youth and employer facing products. She has worked across for-profit and impact sectors in South, East and West Africa and has qualifications in Interactive Media and Behavioural & Evolutionary Ecology.

CHRISTIAN MEYER
Director, Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Development, University of Oxford

Christian Johannes Meyer is the Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Development at the University of Oxford. At the University, he is also affiliated with the Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), the Departmet of Economics, and the Mind & Behaviour Research Group. Before joining the Martin School, Christian was a Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College and the Department of Economics. Prior to joining Oxford, he worked with the World Bank, the Center for Global Development, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Christian's research interest lies at the intersection of development, labour, an behaviour economics. In addition to his academic work, Christian is the Co-Founder and CEO of Tabiya, a non-profit organisation that creates digital public infrastructure for global youth employment.

KATE ORKIN
Associate Professor in Economics and Public Policy, University of Oxford

Kate Orkin is Associate Professor in Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government and a Supernumerary Fellow of Merton College. Prior to this, she was a Junior Research Fellow at Merton College. Kate completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Cape Town. She did her MPhil and DPhil at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, finishing in 2015. With Professor Stefan Dercon and Professor Alan Stein, Kate leads the Mind and Behaviour Research Group at the CSAE, hosted by the Blavatnik School of Government. This is a network of economists, psychiatrists and psychologists applying psychology to inform the design of programmes which either reduce poverty or improve governance and service delivery in low- and middle-income countries.

Kate has worked extensively at the interface of research and policy in taking successful evidence-based interventions to scale. She and her team have worked closely with national and local governments and NGOs, including GiveDirectly, the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator and BRAC, to co-design, test and cost interventions, and then build delivery systems and political will for scale-up. In the past, Kate has done policy advisory work for the South African Presidency, World Bank and International Food Policy Research Institute.