Understanding Poverty and Inequality

John McArthur

Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Sustainable Development

Brookings Institution

John McArthur is senior fellow and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institution. He is also a senior adviser to the United Nations Foundation and a board governor for the International Development Research Centre. He serves as a member of the UNICEF Advisory Group and of Policy Horizons Canada’s Deputy Minister Steering Committee. In 2018 he co-founded the “17 Rooms” initiative as a new approach to catalyzing action for the Sustainable Development Goals.

Chandrika Bahadur

Director

SDG Academy

Chandrika Bahadur is the Director of the SDG Academy and Vice President of Education at the UN SDSN. She is also Chair of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission India Regional Task Force.

From 2008-2011, she was advisor to the Chairman and Managing Director at Reliance Industries, where she helped set up Reliance Foundation, a non-profit philanthropic foundation focusing on areas of education, health, rural development, and urban renewal. From 2001-2008, Chandrika worked with the United Nations in different roles. In her last assignment, she was a Policy Advisor at UNDP’s Bureau for Development Policy in New York, working in Africa to help Ministries of Finance and Planning align their strategies to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), across 20 countries. From 2003-2006, she was part of the leadership team of the UN Millennium Project, an advisory group convened by the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to recommend strategies for the MDGs. From 2001-2002 she worked on trade and HIV and AIDS programs at the United Nations. She has prior teaching experience at Harvard and Columbia Universities.

Sabina Alkire

Director

Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative

Sabina Alkire directs the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI). She is the Associate Professor of Development Studies in the Oxford Department of International Development at the University of Oxford. From 2015–16, Sabina was Oliver T Carr Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics at George Washington University. Previously, she worked at the Global Equity Initiative at Harvard University, the Human Security Commission, and the World Bank’s Poverty and Culture Learning and Research Initiative.

Together with Professor James Foster, Sabina developed the Alkire-Foster (AF) method for measuring multidimensional poverty, a flexible technique that can incorporate different dimensions, or aspects of poverty, to create measures tailored to each context. With colleagues at OPHI this has been applied and implemented empirically to produce a Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). The MPI offers a tool to identify who is poor by considering the range of deprivations they suffer. It is used to report a headline figure of poverty (the MPI), which can be unpacked to provide a detailed information platform for policy design showing how people are poor nationally, and how they are poor by areas, groups, and by each indicator.

Homi Kharas

Senior Fellow, Global Economy and Development, Center for Sustainable Development

Brookings Institution

Homi Kharas is a senior fellow in the Center for Sustainable Development, housed in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings. In that capacity, he studies policies and trends influencing developing countries, including aid to poor countries, the emergence of the middle class, and global governance and the G-20. He previously served as interim vice president and director of the Global Economy and Development program.

Carol Graham

Leo Pasvolsky Senior Fellow and Research Director, Global Economy and Development

Brookings Institution

Carol Graham is the Leo Pasvolsky Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a College Park Professor at the University of Maryland, and a Senior Scientist at Gallup.

Makada Henry-Nickie

Robert and Virginia Hartley Fellow, Governance Studies

Brookings Institution

Makada Henry-Nickie is the Robert and Virginia Hartley Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. Her career and research have focused on expanding equitable access to responsible credit and promoting policies that advance inclusive economic opportunities for disadvantaged families and low-income communities.

Caren Grown

Director, Gender

The World Bank

Caren Grown is an internationally recognized expert on gender issues in development. Dr. Grown joined the World Bank in 2014 as Global Director of the World Bank’s Gender Group, where she has led the institution’s development and implementation of a Gender Strategy that deliberately and strategically targets gaps in endowments, jobs, assets, and increasing women’s leadership and voice. Dr. Grown leads collaboration across the World Bank Group and with development partners to generate evidence on what boosts gender equality, and to identify emerging challenges and opportunities to close the gaps between men and women.

Alpa Shah

Professor of Anthropology

London School of Economics and Political Science

Alpa Shah is Professor in Anthropology at LSE. She also leads a research theme at the LSE International Inequalities Institute on ‘Global Economies of Care’. Please see https://www.alpashah.co.uk/ for more about Professor Shah’s research, writing and engagement.

Professor Shah's "Nightmarch: Among India’s Revolutionary Guerrillas” was winner of the 2020 Association of Political and Legal Anthropology Book Prize, shortlisted for the 2019 Orwell Prize for Political Writing and the New India Foundation Book Prize. It was also a 2018 Book of the Year for the New Statesman, History Workshop, Scroll India, a Hindu Year in Review Book, a Hong Kong Free Press Best Human Rights Book and a Public Anthropologist Must Read. Nightmarch refers to a seven-night trek when Professor Shah found herself dressed as a man amidst a Naxalite guerrilla platoon, walking 250 km across the dense forests of eastern India at the peak of counterinsurgency operations in 2010. Framed by the government and the media as a deadly terrorist group, the Naxalites are Marx, Lenin and Mao-inspired ideologues and tribal combatants, seeking to overthrow a system that has abused them for decades, in what is now the world’s longest running armed insurgency. Based on years of living as an anthropologist with indigenous communities, Shah unveils the many unexpected reasons they have taken up arms to fight for a fairer society and explores how the Naxalites may be undermining their own aims.

Haroon Bhorat

Professor of Economics and Director of the Development Policy Research Unit

University of Cape Town

Haroon Bhorat is Professor of Economics and Director of the Development Policy Research Unit at the University of Cape Town, and a nonresident senior fellow in the Brookings Africa Growth Initiative. His research interests cover labor economics, poverty, and income distribution. He has co-authored and co-edited a number of books on labor market and poverty issues in Africa. Bhorat has published more than 200 academic journal articles, book chapters, and working papers. In September 2019, Haroon was nominated to sit on the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC), established by President Ramaphosa to generate new ideas for economic growth, job creation, and addressing poverty.

Rashawn Ray

David M. Rubenstein Fellow, Governance Studies

Brookings Institution

Dr. Rashawn Ray is a David M. Rubenstein Fellow at The Brookings Institution. He is also a Professor of Sociology and Executive Director of the Lab for Applied Social Science Research (LASSR) at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is one of the co-editors of Contexts Magazine: Sociology for the Public. Formerly, Ray was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Health Policy Research Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley and he currently serves on the National Advisory Committee for the RWJF Health Policy Research Scholars Program.

Andre Perry

Senior Fellow, Metropolitan Policy Program

Brookings Institution

Andre M. Perry is a Senior Fellow with the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, a scholar-in-residence at American University, and a columnist for the Hechinger Report. Perry is the author of the new book Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities , which is currently available wherever books are sold. A nationally known and respected commentator on race, structural inequality, and education, Perry is a regular contributor to MSNBC and has been published by The New York Times , The Nation , The Washington Post , TheRoot.com and CNN.com. Perry has also made appearances on CNN, PBS, National Public Radio, NBC, and ABC. Perry’s research focuses on race and structural inequality, education, and economic inclusion. Perry’s recent scholarship at Brookings has analyzed Black-majority cities and institutions in America, focusing on valuable assets worthy of increased investment.

Heriberto Tapia

Policy Specialist

Human Development Report Office

Heriberto is a senior member of the writing-research team at HDRO. He has worked on Human Development Reports 2015, 2016 and 2017. Previously, he served in the Executive Office of UNDP (2012-2014) and in the Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean (1998-2005). He has worked as a consultant to the IMF, UNDP and ECLAC. Furthermore, he has been lecturer at Columbia University (New York), University of Chile (Santiago) and University Diego Portales (Santiago). Heriberto holds a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University, and a Master’s degree in economics and a Commercial Engineering degree from the University of Chile.

Amar Bhattacharya

Senior Fellow, Global Economy and Development, Center for Sustainable Development

Brookings Institution

Amar Bhattacharya is a senior fellow in the Center for Sustainable Development, housed in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings. His focus areas are the global economy, development finance, global governance, and the links between climate and development.

Dany Bahar

Senior Fellow, Global Economy and Development

Brookings Institution

Dany Bahar is a senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution. He was previously a David M. Rubenstein Fellow at Brookings. An Israeli and Venezuelan economist, he is also an associate at the Harvard Center for International Development (Growth Lab), and a research affiliate at both CESifo Group Munich and IZA Institute of Labor Economics.

Nora Lustig

Samuel Z. Stone Professor of Latin American Economics & Director of the Commitment to Equity Institute

Tulane University

Nora Lustig is Samuel Z. Stone Professor of Latin American Economics and the founding Director of the Commitment to Equity Institute (CEQ) at Tulane University. She is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, the Center for Global Development and the Inter-American Dialogue. Professor Lustig’s research is on economic development, inequality and social policies with emphasis on Latin America. Among her recent publications, the Commitment to Equity Handbook: Estimating the Impact of Fiscal Policy on Inequality and Poverty is a step-by-step guide to assessing the impact of taxation and social spending on inequality and poverty in developing countries. Prof. Lustig is a founding member and President Emeritus of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA) and was a co-director of the World Bank’s World Development Report 2000, Attacking Poverty. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Economic Inequality and is a member of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality’s Executive Council. Prof. Lustig served on the Atkinson Commission on Poverty, the High-level Group on Measuring Economic Performance and Social Progress, and the G20 Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance. She received her doctorate in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Michael Cooke

Director of Research and Learning

Centre for Knowledge Equity

Dr. Michael Cooke is the Director of Research and Learning at the Centre for Knowledge Equity. Until January 2021, he was the Research Director at GiveDirectly, where he managed an extensive portfolio of research projects, including more than a dozen randomised controlled trials.

Wing Thye Woo

President, Jeffrey Cheah Institute on Southeast Asia and Director, Jeffrey Sachs Center on Sustainable Development

Sunway University

Wing Thye Woo is Distinguished Professor of Economics at University of California in Davis, and Research Professor at Sunway University in Kuala Lumpur where he heads the Jeffrey Cheah Institute on Southeast Asia and Jeffrey Sachs Center on Sustainable Development. He also holds academic appointments at Fudan University in Shanghai, Penang Institute in George Town, and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. He is an expert on the East Asian economies, particularly, China, Indonesia and Malaysia. His current research focuses on designing efficient, equitable pathways to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals with projects on Green Finance, Middle Income Trap, and Global Economic Architecture for the Multi-Polar World.

Addisu Lashitew

David M. Rubenstein Fellow, Global Economy and Development

Brookings Institution

Addisu Lashitew is a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution. He has previously held postdoctoral researcher positions at Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands) and Simon Fraser University (Canada). Lashitew’s research interest spans various topics in development economics, including firm growth and productivity, resource allocation, and economic diversification. His most recent research has looked into market-based corporate approaches toward sustainable development and poverty alleviation. He has actively published on the topics of financial inclusion, social innovation, inclusive business strategies, sustainable finance, and Base of the Pyramid strategies. Lashitew maintains teaching and research affiliations with the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) in Nairobi, and the School of Commerce of Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia.