17 October marks the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. From the first goal of the MDG’s call to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger to SDG 1’s objective to end poverty in all its forms everywhere, global development cooperation has a strong focus on poverty. This high-level panel highlights the multidimensional character of poverty and discusses efforts to end poverty in the context of multilateral arrangements and actions at the global, regional, and local level.
Panelists
Luis Felipe López-Calva, Assistant-Secretary-General, UNDP Assistant Administrator and Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean
Laurence Chandy, Director, Office of Global Insight and Policy, UNICEF
Susana B. Adamo, Research Scientist and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Earth Institute, Columbia University
Moderator: Daniel Naujoks, Director a.i. for International Organization and UN Studies, Columbia University.
The event is hosted by SIPA’s International Organization and UN Studies specialization and co-sponsored by the Economic and Political Development concentration, the Institute for Latin American Studies, and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
Speakers’ bios
Luis Felipe López-Calva has nearly 30 years of professional experience, advising several Mexican governments in addition to UNDP and most recently the World Bank, where he served as Practice Manager of the Poverty and Equity Global Practice (Europe and Central Asia). He was previously Lead Economist and Regional Poverty Advisor in the Bank’s Europe and Central Asia Region, and Lead Economist at the Poverty, Equity and Gender Unit in the Latin America and Caribbean PREM Directorate, also at the World Bank. From 2007 to 2010, he served as Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean at UNDP-RBLAC in New York. Mr. López Calva has also been Chair of the Network on Inequality and Poverty in the Latin America and Caribbean Economic Association.
Laurence Chandy was appointed as UNICEF’s first Director of the Office of Global Insight and Policy in August 2019. He previously served as UNICEF’s Director of Data, Research, and Policy. Previously affiliated with the Brookings Institution as aFellow in the Global Economy and Development program, Laurence shaped reforms in global poverty measurement, and helped make the case for establishing the goal to end extreme poverty by 2030. He advised the president of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernández, on the country’s energy sector and debt reforms, served as a senior economist in the Department of National Planning in Papua New Guinea, and also worked as a speechwriter to former president of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn.
Susana B. Adamo is a research scientist at the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) and Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia's Earth Institute. She had a key role in CIESIN's Poverty Mapping Project that was funded by the World Bank and the collection and representation of Global Subnational Poverty Data. Professor Adamo is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Inter American Institute for Global Change Research and co-coordinator of the Population and Environment Research Network (PERN).
