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Participants

Bangladesh Priorities will engage with some of the world’s and the region’s top economists to analyze Bangladesh’s most pressing problems, outline the most important solutions, and provide estimates of costs and benefits for each solution.

Scroll down to learn more about the experts participating in the Bangladesh Priorities project. Keep checking back to find out more about the additional experts that will be added as the project progresses. 


Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak is a Professor of Economics at Yale University.  He also co-chairs the Urban Services Initiative at the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT, and leads the Bangladesh Research Program for the International Growth Centre (IGC) at LSE and Oxford. He has previously worked at the World Bank, and at the International Monetary Fund.  He is a development economist with interests in environmental issues and has several ongoing research projects in Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, India, Kenya and Malawi.  He conducts field experiments exploring ways to induce people in developing countries to adopt technologies or behaviors that are likely to be welfare improving.

Ahsanuzzaman is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the North South University, Dhaka. He is a development economist with research interest in agriculture, health and environmental issues. He has been involved with research in collaboration with Bureau of Economic Research at the University of Dhaka, USAID, and the Institute of Microfinance (InM), Dhaka, Bangladesh. He conducts experiments, both in-field as well as in laboratory settings, in order to investigate the behavioral issues related to technology adoption and other issues related to improving the welfare of the poor.

A K M Nazrul Islam is an Associate Professor of Environmental Economics at Dhaka School of Economics (DScE). He is the founding Coordinator of Environmental Economics programme of DScE. Prior to his current assignment, he worked with Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Dhaka as a Research Fellow and Oxfam GB as a research and policy expert. Dr. Islam has the experiences of conducting research on economic valuation of ecosystem services, climate change and energy issues. He is the Associate Executive Editor of Asia Pacific Journal on Environment and Development, jointly published by Bangladesh Unnayan Parishad (BUP) and Dhaka School of Economics.

Alejandro Cravioto, a Mexican national earned his PhD degree in 1981 from the University of London, UK; MD degree in 1973 from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City; Diploma in Tropical Public Health with distinction in 1977 from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; UK; and Residency in Pediatrics during 1973-1976 in the National Institute of Pediatrics, Mexico City, Mexico. Before joining Global Evaluative Sciences in Seattle, Washington, as a Senior Scientist, Dr. Cravioto was the Executive Director of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research (icddr,b) in Dhaka, Bangladesh, from 2005 to 2012 and the Chief Scientific Officer of the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul, Republic of Korea from 2012 to 2014. Before these positions, Dr Cravioto was the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City. Dr Cravioto has authored more than 190 publications both in English and Spanish. He is an Honorary Professor in the Universidad Ricardo Palma in Lima, Perú, the Universidad del Nordeste in Corrientes, Argentina and the University of Cape Town in South Africa. His work has contributed to the understanding on how bacteria that cause disease attach to intestinal surfaces and on how diarrheal diseases affect the growth, development and nutritional status of infants and children living in less developed areas of the world.

Alexander Golub is an independant consultant. He has 25 years of experience in environmental and natural resource economics, with particular focus on application of cutting age instruments for risk analysis and innovative financial tools for building global environmental markets. His experience is particularly relevant for cost-benefit analysis under uncertainty and quantification of random shocks attributed to climate change. He has combined work in academia, NGOs and Investment banking. As the Executive Director for Global Environmental Markets at UBS he conducted quantitative analysis of global capital markets in context of pricing carbon emissions and equity formation in response to global and regional climate policy.  Since 2012 Dr. Golub is a professor at the American University (Washington, DC) and consultant to The World Bank, Environmental Defense Fund, and Resources for the Future.

Ali Akram is a post-doctoral Fellow at Evidence Action. Previously, he worked at the World Conservation Union as an Analyst. He is a development economist with interests in environmental issues. His current research studies the impact of seasonal income support programs on mitigating hunger risk in Bangladesh, and, the impact of innovative conditional cash transfer mechanisms on improving vaccination rates in Pakistan.

Anna Vassall is a health economist with over twenty five years experience in economic analysis. She has an MSc in Health Planning and Financing at the LSHTM, and has worked on health planning and financing, aid effectiveness and the cost-effectiveness of tuberculosis and reproductive health in a wide range of low and middle income countries. She has provided economic support to European Community and World Bank funded health sector reform and development projects in Yemen, East Timor, Syria and Sudan. Her PhD is in the economic evaluation of tuberculosis control. She has worked as an academic since 2010 (at LSHTM). She is current a senior lecturer in the department of Global Health and Development specialising in research into the economics of HIV and TB, with a particular focus on health services and systems.

Ashikur Rahman is a Senior Economist at the Policy Research Institute (PRI) of Bangladesh. He also teaches microeconomics at the North South University, Dhaka. He completed his PhD in Government {Political Economy} at the London School of Economics, coupled with an MPA in Public and Economic Policy and BSc in Economics (Hons) from the LSE. He has been a consultant for a number of government bodies and other institutions, including the Planning Commission of Bangladesh, BIGD, World Bank, UNDP, DFID and JICA. He is a political economist with specialization on microeconomic program evaluation and institutional diagnosis. At present, he is working on empirically examining the nature of concentration of political power, and its role in shaping economic and political outcomes. 

Atonu Rabbani is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Dhaka and also a Sr. Research Fellow with James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University. He specializes in empirical microeconomic research by focusing on issues such as public health, education, management practices in manufacturing sector and productivity. He has published a number of papers in peer-reviewed journals like Journal of Regional Science, American Economic Review P&P, The Lancet, Annals of Internal Medicine, Journal of Biosocial Science, Health Services Research and Archives of Internal Medicine, among others.

Bazlul Haque Khondker is a Professor of Economics at the University of Dhaka. He is also the Chairman of the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM) and Director, Policy Research Institute (PRI). He holds a PhD from the University of Warwick, UK. He is a macro-fiscal economist with special interest on efficiency and equity aspect of tax and expenditure policies including Value added tax and social protection strategy. He has vast international working experiences in countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Biplob Kumar Nandi is a Senior Lecturer of Economics at East West University, Dhaka. Prior to this, he served as a Senior Research Associate at Policy Research Institute, Bangladesh and worked closely with Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Planning in preparing Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) model, and Macroeconomic Framework Model for 6FYP and 7FYP under the supervision of Ahsan H. Mansur, Sadiq Ahmed and Bazlul H. Khondker. He also worked with International Growth Centre (IGC) in public sector issue. He currently works as a consultant to build up survey design in analyzing firm’s productivity and determinants of credit rating at Emerging Credit Rating Limited (ERCL). His major research interests include Macro-fiscal issues, empirical micro analysis in firms and industrial behavior, trade and finance. His ongoing research works involve cost-benefit analysis of strengthening tax base in Bangladesh at Copenhagen Consensus, impact of domestic debt on growth and the role of social safety nets on labor supply and savings in Bangladesh.

Bjorn Larsen is an economist and consultant to international and bilateral development agencies, consulting firms, and research institutions with 25 years of professional experience from over 50 developing countries. His expertise includes quantitative health risk assessment, health risk valuation, benefit assessment of environmental protection, cost-benefit and cost effectiveness analysis of environmental health intervention. His primary fields of work are outdoor air pollution, household air pollution from solid fuels, household water supply, sanitation and hygiene, and poverty-environmental health linkages.

David Roland-Holst is Assistant Dean for International Programs at the College of Natural Resources and a Professor of Economics and Agricultural and Resource Economics. He is an expert on the Chinese economy, international development, and environmental economics. He has authored six books and over 100 professional journal articles and book chapters. He has also served in academic posts in the United States, Europe, and Asia, and conducted research in more than 40 countries, working with such institutions as the Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development bank, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), World Bank, and several United Nations agencies, as well as governments in Asia, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and United States.

Elena Strukova Golub is an expert in environmental economics and environmental finance, specifically in cost of environmental degradation and cost-benefit analysis. She published several peer-reviewed books and papers. Dr. Strukova has an extensive work experience in transition and developing countries in the field of environmental, energy and climate policy including technical analysis and policy advisory role. As the World Bank consultant she was involved in the Cost of Environmental Degradation and Benefit-Cost Analysis studies in Latin America, South Asia, Africa, Middle East and Eastern Europe.  Also, she served as the OECD expert on environmental finance, energy subsidies elimination, natural resources and pollution fees and the UNDP expert on adaptation to climate change.

Elizabeth D. Brouwer is a PhD student in Health Economics and Outcomes at the University of Washington School of Pharmacy in Seattle, Washington. She completed her BA in Public Policy and MPH in Health Economics at the University of Michigan. Elizabeth spent the past three years working on the third edition of the Disease Control Priorities reference books, where she contributed to and authored several systematic reviews and economic analyses. Her research interests include the economic effects of public finance and regulatory policies for improved population health in low-income settings

Enamul Haque is a Professor of Economics at East West University, Dhaka. He is also the Director of the Asian Center for Development and an Academic Advisor to the South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE). He is an environmental economist with interests in ecosystem services, economics of trans-boundary cooperation on shared resources, and, economics of climate change. He also teaches Research Methodology course at Amrita University, and SANDEE’s Summer and Winter Schools. 

Farazi Binti Ferdous is a research fellow at the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM). She worked as a trade consultant for the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and published the Bangladesh country paper for Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) and Swiss Programme for Research on Global Issues for Development. She has also worked for Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) and Waseda University Global Institute for Asian Regional Integration as research associate. Her research interests include international trade and development economics.

Farzana Misha is a development economist from Bangladesh. After completing her Bachelors from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh and Masters in economics from the University of New South Wales, Australia, she joined BRAC in 2008 as a researcher. She subsequently joined the International Finance Corporation as a Monitoring and Evaluation consultant for a year after which she joined Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD). She concurrently served as a lecturer in Economics at BRAC University. She is currently working towards a doctoral degree at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Her research interests include impact evaluation of social safety-nets, extreme poverty, and vulnerability. Her publications include peer-reviewed articles, working papers, monographs and book chapters.

Golam Mortaza, currently working as the Senior Economics Officer, joined  in the Economics and Programming Unit of ADB’s Bangladesh Resident Mission in November 2008. Prior to joining ADB, he worked as Research Economist at the Policy Analysis Unit of Bangladesh Bank during 2006-2008, and Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Policy Dialogue, Dhaka during 2005-2006. Mr. Mortaza also worked as Part-time Faculty at the BRAC University and East-West University, Dhaka. He has written a number of working papers, and research articles published in refereed journals. He participated in a wide number of workshops, seminars and conferences in home and abroad. Mr. Mortaza got Bachelors and Masters degrees in Economics from the University of Dhaka. Later, he also completed MA in Economics from Dalhousie University, Canada.

Jahangir A. M. Khan is a Senior Lecturer in Health Economics at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in United Kingdom, and also an Associate Professor at James P Grant School of Public Health in Brac University in Bangladesh. He previously worked at icddr,b in Bangladesh as the Head of Health Economics unit and as a Researcher at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. His research interest comprises of healthcare financing, health insurance, economic evaluation of health interventions as well as equity and efficiency impact of health systems. Dr. Khan is a member of government-led country representation for Bangladesh in Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage. He contributed to develop the first-ever healthcare financing strategy of Bangladesh and authored Health Systems in Transition, Bangladesh of Asia Pacific Observatory on Public Health Systems and Policies. Dr. Khan authored several publications in international journals.

Jonathan Rose is a political scientist with extensive experience in both research and the practice of international development. He has published reports, papers and articles on such wide-ranging topics as citizen participation in local government, nutrition, the governance of health and education, crime and politics, justice, trade, and the civil service reform, in countries including Bangladesh, Kenya, Comoros and Nicaragua.  Recently, he co-authored the background paper on governance and justice for the next Five Year Plan of the Government of Bangladesh.  He is currently serving as Research Advisor for the South Asian Institute of Advanced Legal and Human Rights Studies (SAILS).  He has worked and consulted for BRAC, the World Bank, UNDP, Save the Children, USAID and the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation, and previously worked for Oxfam on their Make Trade Fair campaign.  He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT and a Masters in International Development from the Kennedy School at Harvard.

Kazi Mahmudur Rahman is an Assistant Professor of Development Studies at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB), Dhaka. He completed his PhD in International Political Economy from the University of Queensland (UQ) Australia in 2014. He is a Hansard/Chevening Research Scholar at the LSE. He was a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD). His research interests cover a wide spectrum of areas which includes sociology of labour markets; migration and development, politics of development; poverty and inequality; regional cooperation; communication research; trade related issues and global governance. He has published a number of book chapters, monograph and peer reviewed journal articles in various international and national forum.

Khorshed Alam is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Southern Queensland. His research interests include environmental, resource and agricultural economic issues, economics of water-energy-climate change, sustainability, applied economics, digital futures and economic impact assessment .He has published over 70 refereed journal articles and book chapters and a further 40 non-refereed research reports and conference/seminar papers. He has conducted research for local, state and Commonwealth Government departments in Australia.

M. Mahmud Khan is a Professor of Health Services at the University of South Carolina. His teaching areas include economic evaluation, health economics and comparative health systems. In his professional career, he has been a faculty member of Dhaka University, Bangladesh (1981-84), University of Washington, Seattle, WA (1987-88) and Tulane University, New Orleans, LA (1988-2011). He has worked as a consultant for a number of bilateral, multilateral, and voluntary organizations over the last 25 years. His work took him to countries like Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China, Croatia, Cameroon, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Kenya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Myanmar, Nepal, Netherlands, Nigeria, Oman, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Spain, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom, and Vietnam.

Mohammad Enamul Hoque is a researcher for the School of Population Health at the University of Queensland, Australia. His research areas of expertise include health economics and financing, health program evaluation, public health nutrition, health system and policy. Dr. Mohammad Enamul Hoque has extensive experience working both in Bangladesh and abroad. He worked as a researcher at the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research in Bangladesh and as a consultant for the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington DC.

Mohammad Mainul Hoque is currently working at Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies(BIDS). He received PhD in Economics from Iowa State University, USA in 2015. Before that he obtained MSc in Economics from the same university under a Fulbright fellowship. He is trained in applied microeconomics with specialization in Labor Economics, and Environmental and Resource Economics. While working on his dissertation research, he spent one year at Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) as a pre-doctoral associate in an interdisciplinary environment. He has hands-on training on issues related to valuation of non-market goods, inter-linkages between agricultural practices and environmental degradation, payment for ecosystem services, behavioral issues with climate change adaptation, impact evaluation of development projects, importance of childhood health, and quality of human capital. 

Munshi Sulaiman is Research Director of BRAC International overseeing research and evaluation teams in Asia and Africa. His research interests are in enterprise development, extreme poverty, education and youth development. He completed his PhD in Development Studies from London School of Economics. He has over 12 years experience in research on social programmes and recently completed post-doctoral fellowship at Yale University.

Rachel A. Nugent is an economist and Associate Professor in the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington, Seattle. She has been Director of the Disease Control Priorities Network since 2010. She was formerly Deputy Director of Global Health at the Center for Global Development, Director of Health and Economics at the Population Reference Bureau, Program Director of Health and Economics Programs at the Fogarty International Center of NIH, and senior economist at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. At FAO, she was the director of the urban and peri-urban agriculture inter-departmental program. Rachel recently served as a member of the Scientific Review Committee for the second joint WHO UN Habitat report on urban health. Her recent research includes tracking donor funding on NCDs and the linkages between agriculture and NCDs. She received her M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from the George Washington University in Washington, DC, USA. In February 2016, Rachel will become Vice President for Global Non-communicable Diseases at RTI International.

Rejaul Karim Bakshi is an Associate Professor of Economics at Rajshahi University. He has 16 years of research and teaching experiences in economics and development studies. His research interests include field experiment, agricultural innovation, micro-finance and broadly, topics relating to rural livelihoods. He is also working with Centre for Development & Livelihood Studies, Bangladesh. 

Robert Gallagher is a British transport planner who has worked in Bangladesh for much of his career.  He lectured at BUET for five years in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, and later carried out a research study of the rickshaw sector as Visiting Fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS).  He has worked on a wide range of urban transport projects in South Asia and the UK, and is currently working as Team Leader on an ADB project to examine long-term sustainable transport options in Aizawl City, capital of Mizoram, India. 

Rokonuzzman (Rokon Uz Zaman) is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the North South University in Dhaka. His work primarily focuses on maximizing wealth creation through software innovation, broadband service, work process improvement, remote service delivery and policy and regulatory matters governing broadband, software and e-Service markets. Recently, he co-authored the 7th Five Year Plan background study on Digital Bangladesh, which has been incorporated as a chapter in the latest Five Year Plan. Over the last two years, he has been advising an ICT policy reform initiative, coordinated by BASIS and facilitated by The Asia Foundation.

Rumana Huque is a Professor of Economics at the University of Dhaka. She is also the Executive Director of ARK Foundation, a research NGO. She is a health economist with interests in healthcare financing, resource allocation and budgeting, and program evaluation. She is leading a number of research projects with University of Leeds, University of York and University of Liverpool to support the Communicable Disease - Health Service Delivery (COMDIS-HSD) research program consortium and tobacco research in Bangladesh. She is also working as international consultant in preparing the Strategic Investment Plan (SIP) for the 4th SWAp of the country. 

Selim Raihan is a Professor of Economics at University of Dhaka. He is also the Executive Director of the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM). He is a development economist with research interests in trade, econometrics, and poverty. Recently, he authored the 7th Five Year Plan (7FYP) background study on South-South Cooperation. He has worked for several national and international organizations including the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, UNDP, UNESCAP, UNCTAD, IFPRI, the Commonwealth Secretariat, FAO, European Commission, ILO, IDRC, DFID, etc.

Shanawez Hossain is a Research Fellow at BIGD, BRAC University. Previously he has held research, teaching and consultancy positions at Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), Waseda University, Japan and various non-government organizations (NGOs). Currently he is involved with a number of research projects related to governance, development, social accountability funded by SDC, World Bank, DFID. He has a PhD in International Development and Policy Studies and M.A. in Economic Development both from Waseda University, Japan. Dr. Hossain’s research broadly focuses in the areas of economic and social development and policy studies in the Asia-Pacific regions. He has presented research papers in several international conferences and has publications in reputed international journals.

Subir Bairagi is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Los Baños, Philippines. He received his Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) in 2015. From the same University he also received an M.S. in Agricultural Economics with a Fulbright Scholarship in 2012. His research interests are in microeconomics, applied econometrics, industrial organization, and impact assessment.

Sultan Hafeez Rahman is the Executive Director of the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD). He started his professional career at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) in 1975 and retired from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as Director General, after two decade tenure. Throughout his professional career of 37 years, he worked in Cambodia, Thailand, Viet Nam, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bangladesh, as well as 14 Pacific Island countries in the northern and southern Pacific Ocean region. Dr. Rahman has published on a wide range of economic issues. His current research interests are in the areas of economic growth and inequality, 'green growth,' macroeconomic policy, financial sector policy, governance and regional economic cooperation and integration.

Tariqur Rahman is currently working as an international consultant for International Trade Centre (ITC). His research interests include trade, connectivity and rural transformation. He began his research career at Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) where he worked for five years in different capacities with businesses and policymakers, both at home and abroad. He has contributed to a number of studies which were published in books and journals.

Tracey Pérez Koehlmoos joined the faculty of the Uniformed Services University in July 2015 in order to lead the development of a robust health services administration and policy research and graduate program in support of the military health system. Previously she served as the Special Assistant to the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps.  Dr. Koehlmoos is a health systems and policy scientist who specializes in leading complex tasks, program development and capacity building across the spectrum of health systems building blocks. Prior to transitioning to domestic and defense healthcare, she lived and worked in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Indonesia. Previously Dr. Koehlmoos led the Health & Family Planning Systems Programme at ICDDR,B in Dhaka Bangladesh. There, she scaled up zinc for the treatment of childhood diarrhea; founded the Centre for Control of Chronic Diseases and created and led the Centre for Systematic Review, which focuses on health systems and policy issues in low- and middle-income countries and conducted capacity building in this methodology across South Asia.

Uttam Deb, Principal Scientist (Economics) at ICRISAT, has been conducting research on agricultural transformation, poverty, inequality and development pathways; coordinating database management, policy research and capacity building activities of the Village Dynamics in South Asia (VDSA) project. He has led the development of the VDSA Knowledge Bank, a data warehouse with user friendly data retrieval and on line analytical processing (OLAP) features to manage household panel data.

Wahid Abdallah is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics and Social Sciences at BRAC University. He completed his PhD in Economics from the University of Washington at Seattle, USA in Summer 2011. His ongoing research work involves analyzing the role of Information Access, Technologies and Monitoring in public service delivery and procurement, public sector management. He is also engaged in various impact evaluation and assessments of development projects in the development sector.

Wasel Bin Shadat is a Lecturer of Econometrics at the University of Manchester since 2011. Prior to this, he served as senior researcher at the Centre for Policy Dialogue. His   major   research   interests include development and applied economics. He  has co-authored a numbers of books, monographs and book chapters, and also published widely in peer reviewed academic journals. He has presented his research in various academic conferences including Econometric Society Meetings and Royal Economic Society Conferences.