IDC 2010 - Panel speaker bios

SAT, 4/10, 4:20 - 5:40 PM. Location: TBD

The design and focus of country assistance strategies of Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs) for alleviating global poverty is a structural debate among the development world. Assistance in trade and industrial capacity building are at the core of this debate. In this panel, current trade and industrial assistance programs of some IGOs and possible alterations considered necessary for getting better results will be discussed.

Biographies

Robert Z. Lawrence is Albert L. Williams Professor of International Trade and Investment, a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He currently serves as Faculty Chair of The Practice of Trade Policy executive program at Harvard Kennedy School. He served as a member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers from 1998 to 2000. Lawrence has also been a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has taught at Yale University, where he received his PhD in economics. His research focuses on trade policy. He is the author of Crimes and Punishments? Retaliation under the WTO; Regionalism, Multilateralism and Deeper Integration; Single World, Divided Nations?; and Can America Compete? He is coauthor of Has Globalization Gone Far Enough? The Costs of Fragmentation in OECD Markets (with Scott Bradford); A Prism on Globalization; Globaphobia: Confronting Fears About Open Trade; A Vision for the World Economy; and Saving Free Trade: A Pragmatic Approach. Lawrence has served on the advisory boards of the Congressional Budget Office, the Overseas Development Council, and the Presidential Commission on United States-Pacific Trade and Investment Policy.

Carlos Fortin is a Research Associate at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom and at the Chile 21 Foundation in Santiago, Chile. Between 1990 and 2005 he was Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva. Previously he had been Director of Programmes of the South Commission, also in Geneva (1988-1990) and a Fellow (1975-1988), and Deputy Director (1975-1982) of IDS-Sussex.

A graduate of the University of Chile and Yale University, he is the author of three books and a large number of scholarly monographs and articles on the political economy of development with special reference to the role of the State, and on international trade and development. He is currently working on a major project on the international trade regime and human rights.

Mona E. Haddad is Sector Manager in the International Trade Department of the World Bank. In this capacity Ms. Haddad manages the group responsible for supporting the development and implementation of trade-related activities at both country and regional levels. These include trade policy analysis, competitiveness, trade facilitation and standards. Prior to joining the Trade Department, Ms Haddad was the Regional Trade Coordinator for the East Asia Region, where she worked on trade issues in various countries, including Indonesia, China, Laos, and Vietnam.

Francisco Colman Sercovich is Senior Advisor to the Ministry of Science of Argentina on Technology and Innovation policies. Previously, he was Senior Policy Advisor to the Director-General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) as well as being the Director of 2004 and 2005 Industrial Development Reports, flagship publication of UNIDO. He advised to ECLAC, IADB, IDRC, ILO, OAS, OECD, UNCTAD, UNCTC, UNESCO, The World Bank and various Latin American governments on technological policy, industrialization and trade integration.

He holds a PhD in Development Economics from Sussex University in UK and a Master in Political Economy from University of Buenos Aires. He was a visiting scholar at the Harvard Institute for International Development among many others.

Mr. Sercovich coauthored five books: China in the WTO - The Birth of a New Catching-Up Strategy, Updating and Fleshing out the Development Agenda, Gearing Up for a New Development Agenda, Reforming the UN System, Competition and the World Economy: Comparing Industrial Development Policies in Developing and Transition Economies, and over 100 articles and reports on technology, trade and industrialization, with focus on technological policy and dynamic comparative advantage.