Appendix C
Biographical Sketches of Workshop Speakers
Ashrafi Ahmad, M.B.B.S., M.P.H., EMBA, is deputy program manager for the Hospital Services Management section at the Directorate General of Health Services, Bangladesh. The Hospital Services Management section currently runs 15 Shishu Bikash Kendras (SBKs) in 15 medical college hospitals. Dr. Ahmad works as a desk officer from the government counterpart and oversees fund release issues for the SBKs. A multidisciplinary team consisting of child health physicians, developmental therapists, and child psychologists provide services for children with special needs, including neurodevelopmental and other delays.
Dr. Ahmad is a medical graduate with a master’s degree in public health and business administration specializing in human resources management. Dr. Ahmad passed the Bangladesh civil service examination in 1995 and since then has worked closely with Bangladesh’s health sector.
Caroline Arnold is the director of education at the Geneva-based Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), which oversees the education and early childhood portfolio across 17 countries in South and Central Asia, Eastern and West Africa, and the Middle East and Europe. Ms. Arnold has been with the Aga Khan Development Network for 10 years and has worked in education for more than 3 decades, spending two-thirds of that time living and working in South Asia and East Africa. She has worked for UNICEF, international nongovernmental organizations, and universities in Asia, East Africa, London, and the Pacific. She contributes to multiple policy fora—national and international—and is the author of numerous
Tamar Manuelyan Atinc is a visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution and is on a leave of absence from the World Bank, where she has worked in various capacities since 1984. In her last position, she was vice president for human development for 3 years, overseeing the bank’s work in the areas of education, health, nutrition, and population and social protection and labor. She represented the bank in many global fora, including as a member of the Scaling Up Nutrition lead group. In her previous assignments, Ms. Manuelyan Atinc was director for human development in the bank’s Europe and Central Asia region for 4 years and served as a member of the board of the Roma Education Fund. She also served in the East Asia and the Pacific region in a number of positions during a 13-year period, including acting director for human development, sector manager for the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network, and senior economist on China. In the Africa region, she worked for 8 years as country economist for Cameroon and Guinea, including 3 years in Yaounde. Ms. Manuelyan Atinc is also a co-author of the 2006 World Development Report on Equity and Development.
Before joining the bank, she worked in Geneva at the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. A Turkish national, Ms. Manuelyan Atinc has undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard University and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. She speaks Armenian, English, French, and Turkish.
Mariavittoria Ballotta is an ECD specialist with the UNICEF Western and Central Africa Regional Office. In 2003 Ms. Ballotta graduated from the University of Padova, Italy. She holds a master’s degree in international relations from the Institute for International Political Studies (Milan, Italy) and is currently enrolled in a master’s program on childhood and youth studies with Open University (UK). From 2005 to 2012 she served in Equatorial Guinea, Burkina Faso, Haiti, and Senegal with INGO and UNICEF and gained experience in the field of child protection and education, with a special focus on orphans and vulnerable children programming. As an ECD specialist for UNICEF, Ms. Ballotta provides technical support for ECD to 24 countries. She manages and supervises the implementation of an ECD prototype tools package developed in collaboration with Professor Alain Mingat from the Research Institute
for the Economics of Education, which includes an ECD costing model, early learning assessment tool, and parental behavior survey.
Sumit Bose is the former finance secretary and revenue secretary, Department of Revenue in the Ministry of Finance, government of India. Educated at the Doon School, Dehradun (class of 1970), St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, and the London School of Economics, he joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1976. Prior to his present appointment, Mr. Bose was secretary (expenditure) from May 2011 to August 2012. Earlier he was secretary (disinvestment) from February 2010 to May 2011. He was secretary of the Thirteenth Finance Commission from August 2007 to January 2010. Between 2004 and 2007, he was the principal secretary, finance, in the government of Madhya Pradesh. As joint secretary in the Ministry of Human Resource Development, government of India, between 1998 and 2003, he was entrusted with the task of launching the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. He had also served as secretary, School of Education, in Madhya Pradesh between 1994 and 1996.
Pia Rebello Britto, Ph.D., global chief and senior advisor, ECD, UNICEF, is internationally renowned for her expertise in early childhood policy and programs. Dr. Britto obtained her doctoral degree in developmental psychology from Columbia University, and prior to joining UNICEF she was an assistant professor at Yale University’s Child Study Center. Dr. Britto has worked in low-, middle-, and high-income countries developing integrated systems and policies for early childhood. In particular, she has investigated the role of governance and finance of national systems in achieving equity, access, and quality, conceptualized models for implementation and evaluation of quality early childhood services and parenting. Most recently, Dr. Britto is involved in work examining the relationship between early childhood and peace building.
Within the United States, Dr. Britto is known for her scientific work on young children’s early literacy development, early intervention program evaluations, and identity development of Muslim and Arab children. Dr. Britto is the recipient of several national and international grants and awards in recognition for her work and has published numerous books, articles, chapters, and reports. She has presented extensively at conferences, meetings, and workshops (academic and nonacademic) globally.
Madhav Chavan, Ph.D., is a cofounder of Pratham, the largest non-government organization in India addressing the needs of millions of children in India each year through quality education and policy change. Dr. Chavan received his Ph.D. in chemistry at Ohio State University in the United States in 1983 and returned to India in 1986 after his postdoctoral
Dr. Chavan has since then led the organization to expand its work to more than 20 states in India with programs that include remedial education in preprimary and primary schools, support for children who have dropped out of school or are at risk of doing so, and vocational training. The focus remains on creating innovative, low-cost, and replicable solutions that can be easily scaled up. Pratham’s Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) is a nationwide study testing the learning levels of children in India. The results showed that over half the fifth graders were unable to read at the second-grade level. ASER helped shift the focus in primary education from enrollment alone to learning outcomes. To counter this, in 2007 Dr. Chavan introduced Read India, which reached more than 33 million children in the first 3 years alone. Pratham has been recognized for its innovations numerous times both in India as well as internationally.
Amita Chebbi is Head—South Asia, Strategy and Partnerships at the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). In this role, she provides strategic direction and support in developing CIFF’s investment portfolio in the region across the health, education, and nutrition sectors. Ms. Chebbi has more than 16 years of experience across various management functions in the public and private sectors. Prior to CIFF, she was with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) for 8 years in various roles. She brings a unique supply-side perspective and was responsible for evaluating key barriers to access to medicines, especially for children, across disease areas and the potential for impact in new areas of work. Ms. Chebbi was responsible for building and maintaining strategic relationships with pharmaceutical partners in India and facilitated access to lower prices for antiretrovirals to more than 70 countries in the developing world. Before her work at CHAI, Ms. Chebbi spent 8 years in the commercial banking and financial services industry. She is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, in India.
Lucie Cluver, D.Phil., is an associate professor at Oxford University and the University of Cape Town. She works closely with UNICEF, World Health Organization (WHO), U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief-U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the South African government to develop rigorous research in social protection and children affected by AIDS. She is lucky to have exceptional collaborators,
Subrat Das has served as the executive director of the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), New Delhi, since August 2010. The CBGA is an independent policy research organization that analyzes government finances in India and promotes transparent, accountable, and participatory governance in the country. During the past decade, Mr. Das has worked on issues related to the priorities in India’s fiscal policy, responsiveness of fiscal policy and processes to vulnerable sections of the population, taxation, and some of the structural issues in India’s fiscal federalism. He has also been closely involved with the CBGA’s collaborations with universities, think tanks, and civil society organizations in India and other countries. He studied economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Chris Desmond, Ph.D., is an economist specializing in ECD, children affected by HIV and AIDS, and economic evaluation. Currently he is a research specialist at the human and social development research program at the Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa. Dr. Desmond was formerly with the FXB Centre for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University, and the Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Venita Kaul, Ph.D., M.A., is currently the director of the School of Education Studies and of the Center for Early Childhood Education and Development, Ambedkar University, Delhi. As director of the center, she has initiated and led a number of research and advocacy projects in the area of early childhood education and development. A significant research project she is currently leading is a longitudinal study to explore the immediate and medium-term impact of quality variations in early childhood education on primary education outcomes. She is on several advisory committees of the government of India. She has also worked as a senior education specialist at the World Bank and professor and head of the Department of Preschool and Elementary Education at the National Council of Educational Research and Training, New Delhi. Dr. Kaul was awarded the Chancellor’s Gold Medal for attaining the first position in Faculty of Arts in all disciplines in the masters’ program at Allahabad University. She has a doctorate in psychology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
A. K. Shiva (Shiv) Kumar, Ph.D., is an economist and policy advisor. He has recently been appointed global co-chair of kNOw VIOLENCE: A
Global Learning Initiative to Build Better Lives for Boys and Girls. His research has focused on child rights and human development, social sector evaluation, and the impact of development policies on children and women. Dr. Shiva Kumar teaches economics and public policy at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad and at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He was, until recently, a member of the government of India’s National Advisory Council that made recommendations to the prime minister’s office on social policy and legislation. He also serves on the governing council of the Centre for Science and Environment, the Public Health Foundation of India, and the International Center for Research on Women. He has been a regular contributor to the United Nations Development Programme’s annual Human Development Reports. Dr. Shiva Kumar earned his postgraduate diploma in management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and his master’s degree in economics from Bangalore University. He also holds a master’s degree in public administration and a Ph.D. in political economy and government, both from Harvard University.
Protiva Kundu, Ph.D., has been working with the CBGA, New Delhi, as a senior research officer since July 2013. She has a Ph.D. in economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Prior to joining the CBGA, she worked as an economist at the Policy Group of Infrastructure Development Finance Company Ltd. She has worked earlier as a consultant at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy in New Delhi. Her areas of research include education, gender, and rural development. Her research work at the CBGA has focused on issues relating to inequality and public investments in children living in urban poverty.
Sherri Le Mottee is the program leader of Ilifa Labantwana, a South African ECD donor-led initiative seeking to accelerate universal access through modeling and testing innovations that inform a facilitated systemic change management intervention to enable take up and scale. Ms. Le Mottee is a graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand School of Education and a former teacher. She worked extensively with the integration of human rights into the education sector in South Africa, serving on the Ministerial Committee constituted by the then minister of education, various support materials for educators and trainers of educators on the integration of human rights into the curriculum. As program manager for the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, she engaged across the southern African region developing and testing a whole-school approach to building peace, democracy, and human rights in and through education. This led her to the Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa, where
as education program manager, Ms. Le Mottee engaged with civil society and governments across southern African countries seeking to influence policy and facilitate change for education to increase access, retention, and success, especially for poverty-affected and marginalized communities. She then spent 1 year working as consultant to the Education Agenda of Africa, supporting their postconflict education (peace in education) processes in Africa. Since Ms. Le Mottee took up her current position at Ilifa Labantwana 3 years ago, ECD has become a focus and a passion.
Joan Lombardi, Ph.D., is an international expert on child development and social policy. She currently serves as senior advisor to the Buffett Early Childhood Fund on national initiatives and to the Bernard van Leer Foundation on global child development strategies. She also directs Early Opportunities, LLC, focusing on innovation, policy, and philanthropy. During the past 40 years, Dr. Lombardi has made significant contributions in the areas of child and family policy as an innovative leader and policy advisor to national and international organizations and foundations and as a public servant. She served in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as the first deputy assistant secretary for ECD (2009–2011) in the Obama administration and as the deputy assistant secretary for policy and external affairs in the administration for children and families and the first commissioner of the Child Care Bureau, among other positions (1993–1998), during the Clinton administration. Outside of public service, she served as the founding chair of the Birth to Five Policy Alliance (now the Alliance for Early Success) and as the founder of Global Leaders for Young Children. She currently serves on the board of trustees for Save the Children and the board of directors for the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning.
Ann S. Masten, Ph.D., LP, is Regents Professor, Irving B. Harris Professor of Child Development, and Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota. She completed her doctoral training at the University of Minnesota in clinical psychology and her internship at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1986, she joined the faculty at the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota, serving as chair of the department from 1999 to 2005. Professor Masten’s research focuses on understanding processes that promote competence and prevent problems in human development, with a focus on adaptive processes and pathways, developmental tasks and cascades, and resilience in the context of high cumulative risk, adversity, and trauma. She directs the Project Competence studies of risk and resilience, including studies of normative populations and
high-risk young people exposed to war, natural disasters, poverty, homelessness, and migration. The ultimate objective of her research is to inform sciences, practices, and policies that aim to promote positive development and a better future for children and families whose lives are threatened by adversity. Dr. Masten currently serves on the Board on Children, Youth, and Families (BCYF) and the U.S. National Committee of Psychology for the Institute of Medicine/National Academies. She formerly served on the BCYF Committee on the Impact of Mobility and Change on the Lives of Young Children, Schools, and Neighborhoods and the planning committee on Investing in Young Children Globally. She also has served as president of the Society for Research in Child Development and president of Division 7 (Developmental) of the American Psychological Association (APA). She is a 2014 recipient of the Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contributions to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society from the APA. Dr. Masten has published and presented extensively on the themes of risk and resilience in human development. Her book Ordinary Magic: Resilience in Children has recently been published by Guilford Press, and she began teaching a free mass open online course on the same theme beginning in September 2014 on Coursera.
Anit N. Mukherjee, Ph.D., is a consultant at the Center for Global Development, where he works on issues of global health financing and innovations for improving public service delivery. Before joining the center in September 2013, Dr. Mukherjee was associate professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, a think tank linked to India’s Ministry of Finance and Planning Commission. He has conducted research and policy advocacy to improve efficiency and effectiveness of public expenditure in education, health, and poverty reduction programs. He has developed and implemented innovative expenditure tracking and governance tools for social sector schemes in partnership with civil society organizations such as Pratham, the ASER Centre, and the Accountability Initiative. His research focuses on human development, intergovernmental fiscal transfers, public expenditure management, and innovations in the delivery of public services, especially in health and education. Dr. Mukherjee holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Tsukuba, Japan, and has previously worked at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, DC, and as an advisor to the government of Yemen. He is also a nonresident fellow of the Wadhwani Chair in Indo-US Policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC.
Chandan Mukherjee, Ph.D., is currently the pro-vice-chancellor, Ambedkar University, Delhi, and is affiliated with the School of Development Studies. He received his master’s and Ph.D. degrees in statis-
tics from the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata (Calcutta). He joined the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, in 1973 as a lecturer, became a professor in 1988, and was the director of the institute during the period of 1994–2003. Later, he was the Reserve Bank of India Chair Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (New Delhi), from where he retired to join Ambedkar University, Delhi, in February 2011. He was a visiting professor at the Institute of Social Studies (The Hague, Netherlands) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi). He was the vice chairman of the Advisory Council for Scientific Research on Development Problems, Ministry of Development Co-operation, government of the Netherlands, 1997–2002. His main research interest has been in the area of development studies on different issues in agriculture, employment, health, and crimes against women, among other topics. He has published numerous books and articles.
Lorraine Sherr, Ph.D., is a consultant clinical psychologist and professor of clinical and health psychology at University College London Medical School. She is head of the Health Psychology Unit. She has been involved in studying the psychological aspects of HIV since the beginning of the epidemic. She is the editor of the international journal AIDS Care as well as Psychology, Health and Medicine and Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies. She jointly coordinated the European study on policy on HIV in pregnancy and was codirector of the European initiative on HIV discrimination and mental health, HIV and antenatal testing policy in Europe, psychological services for HIV/AIDS, and HIV prevention. Dr. Sherr sat on the British HIV Association’s Social and Behavioural Group and was a member of the Writing Group for the association’s adherence guidelines, reproduction guidelines, and psychological care guidelines. She has sat on the Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for WHO’s HIV section. She was co-chair of Learning Group 1 on Families for the Joint Learning Initiative on Children and AIDS. She also sits on the steering committee of the International Coalition on Children affected by AIDS.
Dr. Sherr has been appointed a Churchill Fellow for life for her work on HIV and AIDS in obstetrics and pediatrics. She has held numerous research grants looking into aspects of health psychology, family, and HIV and AIDS in Africa, Europe, and the United Kingdom. She has chaired the British Psychological Society Special Group on HIV and AIDS and the Special Group on Teaching Psychology to Other Professions. She has provided psychosocial evaluations for international organizations such as the World Health Organization, USAID, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, UNICEF, Save the Children, World Vision, and Norad. Dr. Sherr represented psychology on the International Scientific Board of the International AIDS Conferences in Geneva
and Washington (2012) and is on the international organizing committee of the AIDS Impact Conference. She was previously appointed to the Review Support Panel of the Global Fund and has chaired the WHO Committee on HIV Disclosure.
Amarjeet Sinha is currently posted as principal secretary, Department of Social Welfare, Government of Bihar. He has more than 30 years of experience in government, primarily in the social sector. He has had the unique distinction of having played a major role in designing Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (India’s main program for universal elementary education) and the National Rural Health Mission. He has also been training Indian Administrative Service officer trainees at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, on the social sector over the past 15 years.
Mr. Sinha has also served as the education/human development advisor with the Department for International Development, United Kingdom, from 2001 to 2005. He has been a field officer in the tribal Singhbhum district of Jharkhand and in the extremist-affected Jehanabad district of Bihar. He was associated with the design of the Bihar Education Project, the first Education for All project after the Jomtien Declaration of 1990, on Education for All. He has been conferred the Honorary Fellowship of the Indian Public Health Association and is a member of the International Independent Review Committee of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. He has carried out many assignments for international agencies such as UNICEF, the United Nations Development Programme, the Department for International Development, and WHO, among others.
Mr. Sinha has published seven books and many articles in such publications as Lancet, Economic and Political Weekly, Economic Times, the Hindu, the Business Standard, and the Hindustan Times, among others. His latest book, An India for Everyone: A Path to Inclusive Development, was released by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen in February 2013.
Enakshi Ganguly Thukral has been a human rights activist and child rights advocate, researcher, and trainer for the past 3 decades, working on such wide-ranging sociolegal issues as development-induced displacement, women in the unorganized sector, reproductive health, child labor, child trafficking, laws and policies governing women and children, education, violence against children, and juvenile justice. Since cofounding HAQ: Centre for Child Rights, in 1998, Ms. Ganguly Thukral has focused on children’s rights. Working on children and governance and child protection, HAQ is actively engaged in monitoring governments’ performance, public education, and advocacy on children’s rights. It works as a resource and support base providing information, referral services, legal
Jan van Ravens is a senior policy maker and consultant affiliated with the Child Study Center at Yale University. In recent years he has supported early childhood policy development in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ethiopia, Georgia, Indonesia, Jordan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Macedonia, Montenegro, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Romania, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, and Uzbekistan. As a member of a research team from Yale and Harvard, he studied the governance of child policy in Colombia, Kenya, Peru, and Uganda. Former positions include senior policy analyst in a United Nations team that issues the annual Education for All Global Monitoring Reports; head of international affairs in the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; and coordinator of higher education and lifelong learning in the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. Having participated in international networks (UNICEF, World Bank, OECD, EU, UNESCO), Mr. van Ravens values international comparison as an important means to better understand and improve the functioning of national systems for education, health care, and social protection. A graduate of Leiden University, Mr. Van Ravens has published about 75 titles—partly academic, partly more journalistic—on early childhood policy and on education.
Quentin Wodon, Ph.D., is an advisor/lead economist in the Education Global Practice at the World Bank, where he serves as cluster leader for equity, resilience, and ECD. Previously, he managed the World Bank unit working on faith and development, served as lead poverty specialist for Africa, and worked as an economist/senior economist for Latin America. Before joining the World Bank, Dr. Wodon worked as an assistant brand manager for Procter and Gamble Benelux, volunteer corps member and deputy director with the International Movement ATD (All Together for Dignity) Fourth World, and tenured assistant professor of economics at the University of Namur. He is a fellow with the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, Germany, and the European Center for Advanced Research in Economics and Statistics in Brussels and has taught at Georgetown University and American University in addition to the University of Namur. Dr. Wodon serves on various advisory boards and as an associate editor for journals and is a past president of the Society of Government Economists. He is also actively involved in service work with Rotary and performs pro bono consulting for nonprofits. Dr. Wodon’s work focuses on improving policies that can contribute to poverty reduction and development. He has more than 350 publications and is a recipient of
the Prize of Belgium’s Secretary of Foreign Trade, a Fulbright grant, and the Dudley Seers Prize. He holds graduate degrees in business engineering, economics, and philosophy (Université Catholique de Louvain), as well as doctorates in economics (American University) and theology and religious studies (Catholic University of America).
