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Panel debate: Globalization, inflected - development and repositioning in the changing global context


14 June 2024
10:00 - 12:00 hrs. Tempus, Palais des Nations
Geneva
, Switzerland


Speakers

  • Prof. José Antonio Ocampo, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
  • Prof. Célestin Monga, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
  •  Prof. Isabella Weber, University of Massachusetts Amherst 
  • Prof. James K. Galbraith, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and Professorship in Government, University of Texas


Moderator

  • Ms. Rebeca Grynspan, UN Trade and Development Secretary-General
José Antonio Ocampo
Professor of Professional Practice in International and Public Affairs
Columbia University

José Antonio Ocampo is director of the Economic and Political Development Concentration in the School of International and Public Affairs, Member of the Committee on Global Thought and co-President of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University. He is also the Chair of the Committee for Development Policy, an expert committee of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). In 2012–2013 he chaired the panel created by the IMF Board to review the activities of the IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office; in 2008–2010, he served as co-director of the UNDP/OAS Project on “Agenda for a Citizens’ Democracy in Latin America”; and in 2009 a Member of the Commission of Experts of the UN General Assembly on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System.

Prior to his appointment, Ocampo served in a number of positions in the United Nations and the Government of Colombia, most notably as United Nations Under-Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs; Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); Minister of Finance and Public Credit, Chairman of the Board of Banco del República (Central Bank of Colombia); Director of the National Planning Department (Minister of Planning); Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, and Executive Director of FEDESARROLLO.

Ocampo has published extensively on macroeconomic theory and policy, international financial issues, economic and social development, international trade, and Colombian and Latin American economic history.

Célestin Monga
Professor at John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University

Dr. Célestin Monga is professor of public policy (economics) at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He is also Faculty Associate at the Center for International Development at Harvard University and Fellow at the Harvard University Center for African Studies.

Since 2016, he has also been part-time Professor of Economics at the University of Paris, Panthéon-Sorbonne and Research Professor at Peking University’s Institute of New Structural Economics.

Prior to his current life in academia Monga held various board and senior executive positions in academia, financial services, and international development institutions, serving most recently as Managing Director at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Vice-President and Chief Economist of the African Development Bank Group, and Senior Economic Adviser/Program Director at the World Bank Group.
 
Monga has published extensively on various dimensions of economic and political development. His books have been translated into several languages and are widely used as teaching tools in academic institutions around the world.

Dr. Monga holds graduate degrees from MIT, Harvard University, and the Universities of Paris and Pau.

Isabella Weber
Professor of Economics
University of Massachusetts Amherst

Isabella Weber is an Assistant Professor of Economics and the Research Leader for China of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. 

Previously she was a Lecturer at Goldsmiths, London. She holds a Ph.D. in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. in Economics from the New School of Social Research. 

Isabella is the author of “How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate” and has written on the economics of China’s rise, neoliberalism and neoliberals in China, the US-China trade imbalance and theories of money.

James K Galbraith
Professor at Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs
University of Texas

James Kenneth Galbraith is an American economist. He is currently a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and at the Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Senior Scholar with the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College and part of the executive committee of the World Economics Association, created in 2011.

Galbraith holds degrees from Harvard University (BA) and in economics from Yale University (MA, M.Phil, PhD). He was Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress in the early 1980s. He chaired the board of Economists for Peace and Security from 1996 to 2016 and directs the University of Texas Inequality Project. He is a managing editor of Structural Change and Economic Dynamics.

In 2010, he was elected to the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. In 2014 he was co-winner with Angus Deaton of the Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economics. In 2020 he received the Veblen-Commons Award of the Association for Evolutionary Economics.

Rebeca Grynspan
Secretary-General
UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

Rebeca Grynspan, of Costa Rica, became UNCTAD's eighth Secretary-General on 13 September 2021 and is the first woman to lead the organization.

Prior to her UNCTAD appointment, she was the Ibero-American secretary-general from 2014 to 2021, also the first woman to head the organization. During her mandate, she has coordinated the 22-member Iberoamerican Conference and led four key summits of Heads of State and Government. 

In 2010 she was appointed Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and prior to that was UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean.  

Prior to joining the United Nations, Ms. Grynspan served as Vice-President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998. She was also Minister of Housing, Minister Coordinator of Economic and Social Affairs, and Deputy Minister of Finance. In 2021 she was named Special International Advisor to the newly created Economic and Social Council of Argentina and invited to join as member of the G20 High-Level Independent Panel on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.

In addition to her experience as a lecturer and advisor to several international organizations, she has been actively involved in key United Nations initiatives, such as the Millennium Project's Task Force on Poverty and Economic Development and the High-level Panel on Financing for Development.  

In 2014 and 2015, she was recognized as one of the 50 leading intellectuals of Latin America.  And she was recognized as one of the 100 most powerful women in Central America by Forbes magazine.

Ms Grynspan holds a degree in Economics by the University of Costa Rica and a MSc in Economics by the University of Sussex. She has been awarded a Doctorate Honoris Causa by the University of Salamanca, the University of Extremadura and the European University of Madrid in recognition of her outstanding professional achievements. 


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Contact

Communications concerning representation:

UNCTAD Secretariat
Intergovernmental Outreach and Support Service
Palais des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 10

E.: meetings@unctad.org

 

For all other enquiries:

Nicole Lewis-Lettington
E.: Nicole.Lewis-Lettington@un.org