New York: Indian development economist Jayati Ghosh is among 20 prominent personalities appointed by the United Nations to a high-level advisory board that will provide recommendations for the UN Secretary-General to respond to the current and future socio-economic challenges in the post-COVID-19 world.Ghosh, 65, is a professor of economics at University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has taught economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University for nearly 35 years and has authored several books.The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) announced that the 20 “prominent personalities, globally renowned for their intellectual leadership in economic and social fields, will form the second United Nations High-level Advisory Board (HLAB) on Economic and Social Affairs.”The 19 other personalities on the group will be:Joseph E. Stiglitz, University Professor, Columbia University;Ricardo Lagos, Honorary Chairman of the Inter-American Dialogue and former President of Chile (2000-2006);Ernesto Zedillo, Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and former President of Mexico (1994-2000);Jeffrey D. Sachs, University Professor, Columbia University;Giancarlo Corsetti, Professor of Macroeconomics, University of Cambridge;Diane Coyle, Inaugural Bennett Professor of Public Policy, University of Cambridge;Ibrahim Elbadawi, Managing Director, Economic Research Forum for the Arab World, Iran & Turkey;Alex Ezeh, Dornsife Professor of Global Health at the Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University;Marcel Fratzscher, President of DIW Berlin;Anastasia J. Gage, Professor at the Department of Global Community Health and Behavioral Sciences, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University’Nargis Kassenova, Senior Fellow and Director of the Program on Central Asia at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University;Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value, University College London (UCL);José Antonio Ocampo, Professor, Columbia University, and Chair of the Committee for Development Policy of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC);Dani Rodrik, Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy, Harvard Kennedy School;Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, chief executive of the South African Institute of International Affairs;Heizo Takenaka, Professor Emeritus, Keio University, and Professor, Toyo University;Izabella Mônica Vieira Teixeira, former Minister of Environment (2010-2016), Brazil;Kori Udovički, Head of the Center for Advanced Economic Studies (CEVES);Min Zhu, Chairman, National Institute of Financial Research, Tsinghua University; andElliott Harris, UN Assistant-Secretary-General for Economic Development and UN Chief Economist (ex officio member).Over the next two years, the board will strengthen the United Nations thought leadership on sustainable development and reinforce its impact on policies at every level from global to local, it said.Comprising a diverse group of experts from around the world, the board will closely collaborate with UNDESA to provide guidance and focused recommendations for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to respond to current and future socio-economic challenges in the post-COVID-19 world and to advance the Decade of Action for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).The first United Nations High-level Advisory Board was established in June 2018 as a key element of the efforts to support the UN Member States in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.Over the course of the last two years, the interventions and insights of the board greatly expanded the understanding of UNDESA of some of the most burning economic and social issues shaping the world and inspired the United Nations to break new ground in policy research, the UN agency said in a statement.Born in 1955, Ghosh got her M.A, M. Phil. in economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University and joined Cambridge University for her Ph.D.(PTI)
