Keynote Panelists

Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada

Former President of Bolivia

Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was born in La Paz, Bolivia, and, as a child of a diplomat, grew up mainly in the United States where he received primary, secondary and university education. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from The University of Chicago. He is married to Ximena Iturralde Monje of La Paz, Bolivia and they have a daughter and a son and five grandchildren.

Upon returning to Bolivia, he founded a documentary and commercial film production company, TELECINE Ltda., and later started a petroleum services company, ANDEAN GEO-SERVICES LTD., (aerial photography, geodetic surveys and administration of geophysical and drilling camps.) In 1962 he founded Companía Minera del Sur, S.A. (COMSUR), a mining company dedicated to the production of tin, zinc, lead and silver, and gold. Today COMSUR is the largest private mining enterprise in Bolivia. Mr. Sánchez de Lozada served as President and Chief Executive Officer until he entered public service.

In 1979 Mr. Sánchez de Lozada entered into public life and served in the Chamber of Deputies representing the department of Cochabamba and after two terms, he was elected Senator and then President of the Senate. His career in public service then led him to the executive branch where he became Minister of Planning and Coordination in the administration of President Victor Paz Estenssoro. During this time he gained national and international recognition as author of the 1985 economic “shock therapy” program that brought Bolivia’s 25,000% hyper-inflation under control and laid the foundations for future economic stability and growth. In 1993, after being elected presidential candidate of his party, the MNR (Nationalist Revolutionary Movement), he won the general election by a landslide and was inaugurated as the 61st President of Bolivia. He served from August of 1993 until August of 1997 and implemented the “Plan de Todos” (A Plan for Everyone), based on profound economic, social and political reforms: Popular Participation, Administrative Decentralization, Education Reform, Capitalization, Pension Reform, and Judicial Reform. Mr. Sánchez de Lozada won the 2002 elections and was sworn in for a second period on August 6, 2002. In October, 2003 he resigned the presidency and now resides in Washington, D.C.

He is presently non-Executive Chairman of Minera, S.A., a holding company whose subsidiaries hold mining interests in the Western Hemisphere. He is also a member of many international associations and serves on the boards of organizations that promote peace, democracy, and economic development. He has received numerous distinctions and awards as well as honorary degrees from universities in Japan, the United States and Ecuador.

Nemat Shafik

Permanent Secretary, Department for International Development (DFID), UK

Minouche Shafik joined DFID in November 2004, as Director General Country Programmes, with responsibility for all of DFID’s country programmes in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. This included an annual programme of L2.7 bn and over 1800 staff in over 50 countries.

Previously, she served as Vice President, Private Sector and Infrastructure at the World Bank and was part of the senior management group of the International Finance Corporation (IFC). She also chaired several international consultative groups that support microfinance, energy, water and sanitation for the poor, urban development and slum upgrading, information technologies for development, and private participation in infrastructure.

At the World Bank she worked in a variety of areas – the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the environment, and on international economic issues. She has also taught at the Wharton Business School and at Georgetown University.

Minouche received her B.A. in Economics and Politics from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and her M.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics. She also holds a D.Phil. in Economics from St. Antony’s College, Oxford University.

She is married and has two children and three stepchildren.

Ad Melkert

UNDP Associate Administrator and UN Under-Secretary-General

Ad Melkert was appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the position of UN Under-Secretary-General and Associate Administrator of UNDP effective 1 March, 2006.

Previously, Mr. Melkert served as a member of the Board of Directors at the World Bank for over three years where, as Executive Director, Mr. Melkert represented Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Israel, FYR Macedonia, Moldova, The Netherlands, Romania, and Ukraine. The Board of Directors of the World Bank, chaired by the President, oversees the bank's business, including approval of loans and guarantees, new policies, the administrative budget, country assistance strategies, and borrowing and financial decisions.

Mr. Melkert joined the World Bank after a long and prominent political career in the Dutch Labour Party. He was member of Parliament and Minister of Social Affairs and Employment, becoming the party's parliamentary leader in 1998. In 2001 he was elected party leader, succeeding then prime minister Wim Kok.

Mr. Melkert has had a longstanding involvement in issues of international and development cooperation. He was active in the international and European youth movement and worked for the Dutch development NGO Novib. In Parliament, he was a member of the Standing Committees for Foreign Affairs and Development Co-operation. As a Minister, he led the Dutch delegations to the UN World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995) and to the International Labour Organization's annual meetings.

Mr. Melkert holds a Master's degree in Political Sciences from the University of Amsterdam. He is married to Chilean painter Mónica León Borquez and has two daughters. In addition to his native Dutch, he speaks English, German, French, and Spanish.

Managing Director, Public Policy, Gates Foundation

Geoffrey Lamb is Managing Director for Public Policy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He has worked extensively in Asia, Africa, Europe, the former Soviet Union, and the Middle East. Previously, he served as Senior Fellow for the Gates Foundation's Global Development Program. An Irish national born in South Africa, he has held several senior development positions, most recently as Vice President of Concessional Finance and Global Partnerships at the World Bank, where he led international negotiations on funding and on debt reduction for the world's poorest countries and led the bank's work on innovative financial mechanisms for global public goods, including vaccines. Earlier in his career he was a Fellow and Deputy Director of the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex. He was a founding member of the board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and currently serves in a voluntary capacity as Chairman of the Board of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.

Moderator

Ricardo Hausmann

Professor of the Practice of Economic Development at the Harvard Kennedy School, Director of the Center for International Development

Ricardo Hausmann is Professor of the Practice of Economic Development and Director of the Center for International Development. Previously, he served as the first Chief Economist of the Inter-American Development Bank (1994 to 2000), where he created the Research Department. He has served as Minister of Planning of Venezuela (1992 to 1993) and as a member of the Board of the Central Bank of Venezuela. He also served as Chair of the IMF-World Bank Development Committee. He was Professor of Economics at the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administracion (IESA) (1985 to 1991) in Caracas, where he founded the Center for Public Policy. He also was a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University (1988 to 1991). His research interests include issues of growth, macroeconomic stability, international finance, and the social dimensions of development. He holds a PhD in economics from Cornell University.